The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLV, No. 118

The Harvard Crimson The University Daily, Est. 1873 | Volume cxlv No. 118 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Tuseday, november 6, 2018

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There is only one thing to say to our eligible classmates: Go vote!

Experts and donors are divided on whether lawsuit will affect donations.

Men’s Basketball opens season against crosstown challenger MIT.

Lawsuit Could Affect Funding

A Guide to Midterm Election Day 2018

Experts are undecided on whether lawsuit will affect donations.

By Eli w. Burnes and Andrew J. Zucker Crimson Staff Writers

lan zhang—Contributing Designer

Everything You Need to Know About the Midterms

By Benjamin E. Frimodig, Iris M. Lewis and Meena Venkatarmanan Crimson Staff Writers

Voters across the nation will cast their ballots Tuesday to determine the country’s next round of political leaders in a midterm election increasingly framed as a referendum on President Donald Trump. Around 36 million people across the nation have already voted – making for

Harvard’s Stakes

what appears to be a high-turnout election, especially among younger voters.

Democrats have their eyes set on the House of Representatives, which they are hoping to take back after losing control of the chamber in 2010. One key issue this election cycle is immigration, an issue around which Trump has intensified his rhetoric in recent days in what

See elections Page 9

By molly C. McCafferty Crimson Staff Writer

When voters head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the 2018 midterm elections, they may not be thinking about Harvard.

But the way they vote could have serious reverberations in Cambridge. Ranging from taxes on its $39.2 billion endowment to the immigration status of its undocumented students ­

and workers to the survival of its controversial social group sanctions, the University has a large stake in the outcome of this year’s midterms.

In the run-up to Tuesday, University President Lawrence S. Bacow has been busy lobbying legislators to keep Harvard’s interests in mind. He’s traveled to Washington, made a series of phone calls to

HKS Professors Donate to Democrats

By Alexandra A. Chaidez Crimson Staff Writer

­ arvard Kennedy School facH ulty, instructors, and research associates donated overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates, political action committees,

See stakes Page 7

See donations Page 9

See stats Page 9

Changing the Distribution Growing Stat Department Seeks to Increase Representation of Women

By Amy L. Jia and Sanjana L. Narayanan Crimson Staff Writers

For 58 years after its establishment, Harvard’s Statistics Department — known for being a small, scholarly community of a few dozen researchers sequestered on the seventh floor of the Science Center — did not have a single female tenured faculty member.

That picture has changed dramatically over the past ten years, ­

as the department has transformed to accommodate a skyrocketing number of undergraduate concentrators and a rising awareness of gender representation in the sciences.

About a quarter of today’s tenured Statistics faculty is female, a development that administrators, professors, and alumni see as a seachange from the department of decades past.

Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity Judith D.

Nina Y. Cao ‘22 and Yash Nair ‘22 work on a problem in the Math Department lounge, while Angela L. Balistrieri ‘22 studies. Anthony Y. Tao—Crimson photographer

Guide May Spur Title IX Changes

By Jordan e. virtue Crimson Staff Writer

Crimson Staff Writer

Harvard may be required to change its current Title IX policy to comply with new federal dictates if the U.S. Department of Education publishes a new set of guidelines under consideration, experts say.

The new draft guidelines would require schools to allow students accused of sexual assault to cross-examine their accusers, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. They are aimed at shaping implementation of Title IX, an anti-sex discrimination law that underpins universities’ approach to handling sexual assault.

Polling Station

See title ix Page 7

Harvard Today 2

See lawsuit Page 7

Elderly Woman Assaulted on Subway

By Simone C. Chu

Inside this issue

Higher education fundraising experts are divided over whether the Harvard admissions lawsuit will impact donations — though some big-ticket donors say the litigation won’t change their giving patterns.

Harvard’s high-profile admissions trial wrapped up in a Boston federal courtroom Friday after 15 days of argument.

The trial was the latest development in a four-year-old lawsuit filed by anti-affirmative action advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, which alleges Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants.

Whichever way Judge Allison D. Burroughs rules, the losing party plans to appeal the verdict — likely all the way to the Supreme Court. With conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh now on the bench, experts predict the court could strike down affirmative action in college admissions entirely.

The lawsuit has revealed many once-hidden details about how Harvard admits students.

Among other revelations, documents released in court showed that the University gives significant admissions preferences to children of wealthy donors.

These applicants — whom the College places into two selective groups dubbed the “dean’s list” and “director’s list” — see an acceptance rate nine times higher than the overall rate.

University President Lawrence S. Bacow said in an interview last week he could not quantify the donations Harvard receives from alumni whose children benefited from these admissions preferences.

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that and, even if I did, I probably couldn’t say it right now given that the case is in trial,” he said.

Asked whether Harvard has seen an uptick in donations in

News 7

Students go to cast their votes at the Quincy House polling station. College-age Americans are voting in record numbers this year. Amy Y. Li—Crimson photographer

Editorial 10

Sports 12

Today’s Forecast

­ n elderly woman was punched A in the back of the head after getting on a Red Line train car at the Harvard Square station on Friday, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority police announced.

The assault occurred at rush hour, when the 71 year-old female stepped from the Harvard stop into a crowded car, according to an article tweeted

by MBTA Transit Police. With all of the seats in the car taken, the victim saw another female, identified as 23-year-old Boston resident Jada Campbell, occupying one seat with her purse on the adjacent seat.

According to the MBTA Transit Police Department website, the victim “politely asked Campbell to hold her purse so the seat could free up and the victim could sit down.”

Campbell refused, and when

rainy High: 63 Low: 51

the victim handed her the purse and began to sit down, Campbell threatened to physically harm the victim. The elderly woman began to move away, fearing for her safety, when Campbell struck her in the back of the head with a closed fist.

Campbell then began threatening witnesses who alerted transit police to the situation.

After a “struggle,” police arrested Campbell on charges of assault and battery on a person over 60, intimidation of a witness, and resisting arrest. She was then taken to transit police headquarters for booking.

MBTA Superintendent Richard Sullivan spoke out against the assault at the Harvard MBTA station.

“We are judged as a society by how we treat our most vulnerable citizens, our children and our elders,” Sullivan wrote in an emailed statement.

See assault Page 7

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

november 6, 2018

Page 2

Harvard Today

For Lunch Butter Chicken Pepperoni Pizza Cheese Pizza

For Dinner Blackened Salmon Lamb Meatballs Marsala Spicy Potato Curry

Today’s Events

in The Real World

PIzza & Politics: Election Day Roundtable Institute of Politics, 12:00 p.m.

Their Soybeans Piling Up, Farmers Hope Trade War Ends Before Beans Rot

Go to to Wexner Building Room 434, for this roundtable on the day of the midterm elections and listen to people experienced in the political field discuss history as it unfolds.

As a result of President Trump’s tariffs, China is buying fewer soybeans, which means farmers in the United States are overproducing them.

The beans will eventually rot, and so farmers are hoping that the trade war ends before their produce (like that orange that’s been in your fridge for two months) goes to waste.

IOP Election Night Party Institute of Politics, 6:30 p.m.

Watch the results of races across the country at the IOP Election Night Party! It’s taking place at the JFK Jr. Forum, and there will be beer (21+)!

Watch democracy unfold! You need a Harvard ID to attend this event.

Back to the Future, Part 2 Brattle Theater, 9:30 p.m.

Head to Brattle Theater for an election night special showing of Back to the Future, Part 2! This classic will take your mind off of the impending midterm elections that will otherwise keep your mind preoccupied all night.

Tickets are available online.

Olympic Committee Moves to Revoke U.S.A. Gymnastics’ Governing Rights An aerial view of Weeks Bridge as two kayakers paddle past. amy Y. Li—Crimson photographer

Daily Briefing Ranging from taxes on its $39.2 billion endowment to the immigration status of its undocumented students and workers to the survival of its controversial social group sanctions, the University has a large stake in the outcome of this year’s midterms. In the run-up to Tuesday, University President Lawrence S. Bacow has been busy lobbying legislators to keep Harvard’s interests in mind.

In other news, Harvard Kennedy School faculty donated overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates, political action committees, and causes in both the 2016 and 2018 election cycles.

After multiple mishandlings of sexual assault complaints — including those involving a team doctor that assaulted over 300 athletes — the United States Olympic Committee voted to take over the operations of U.S.A. Gymnastics.

Stunning Early-voting Numbers ahead of Election Day

Yay! People are voting! Early voting numbers are in and they are wild, folks. More than 35 million people have voted early — more than all votes cast in the 2014 midterm elections. Democrat, Republican, or neither, make sure to vote TODAY if you haven’t already!

Around the Ivies UPENN The University of Pennsylvania’s counseling and psychological services have designated a new onsite clinician for students in its business school, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported Monday.

Starting Tuesday, a licensed social worker and psychotherapist will be stationed part-time at the Wharton School to improve mental health for its students. The clinician will only be available to students in the business school. This is the first time undergraduate students have been able to access the mental health service’s staff directly in their schools.

cornell More than 99 percent of Cornell’s faculty’s donations were to left-leaning groups over the past year, the Cornell Daily Sun reported Monday. In total, faculty, lecturers, and researchers donated more than $280,000 to election campaigns, almost all of which were to left-leaning candidates for federal, state, and other races. One professor told the Daily Sun that his political views did not seep into the classroom. “I think all of us who are contributing to the Democrats, and I’m not the only one, try not to let those views get into anything we’re doing on the campus,” the professor said.

columbia A group of students at Barnard announced plans to boycott the school’s dining halls to protest its continued contract with embattled food service provider Aramark, the Columbia Spectator reported last week. Barnard’s contract with the provider - which has been accused of employee misconduct, food contamination, among other scandals - expires at the end of 2018. “What is really important to us is that Barnard students show disapproval of Aramark by swiping only at Columbia dining halls or eating off campus,” one organizer said.

The University Daily, Est. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Derek G. Xiao President Hannah Natanson Managing Editor Nathan Y. Lee Business Manager

Associate Managing Editors Mia C. Karr ’19 Claire E. Parker ’19 Associate Business Managers Dahlia S. Huh ’19 Max W. Sosland ’19 Digital Strategists Jamie D. Halper ’20 Caroline S. Engelmayer ’20 Editorial Chairs Cristian D. Pleters ’19 Emmanuel R. R. D’Agostino ’19

Staff for This Issue Arts Chairs Mila Gauvini II ’19 Grace Z. Li ’19

Design Chairs Morgan J. Spaulding ’19 Simon S. Sun ’19

FM Chairs Marella A. Gayla ’19 Leah S. Yared ’19

Multimedia Chairs Amy Y. Li ’20 Ellis J. Yeo ’20

Blog Chairs Lydia L. Cawley ’20 Stuti Telidevara ’20

Technology Chairs Nenya A. Edjah ’20 Theodore T. Liu ’20

Sports Chairs Cade S. Palmer ’20 Jack R. Stockless ’19

Copyright 2018, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Brittany N. Ellis ’19

Design Editors Katie E. Wang ’20

Assistant Night Editors Jamie D. Halper ’20 Eli W. Burnes ’21

Photo Editors Amy Y. Li ‘20 Shera Avi-Yonah ‘21

Story Editors Edith M. Herwitz ‘20 Hannah Natanson ’19 Claire E. Parker ’19 Alison W. Steinbach ‘19 Phelan Yu ‘19

Editorial Editor Emmanuel R.R. D’Agostino ’19 Sports Editor George Hu ’19

Corrections The Nov. 5 article “Harvard Sex Week Returns to Stimulate Campus Conversations” used incorrect gender pronouns to refer to Michal Goderez. It has been updated.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | NOVEMBER 6, 2018 | PAGE 3

ARTS International Choreographer William Forsythe Opens Interactive Exhibition at the ICA

the week in arts

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AURELIA S. HAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER William Forsythe, American dancer and choreographer extraordinaire, spent most of his time overseas in Europe for the past 50 years, working extensively first with Ballet Frankfurt and then founding his namesake dance troupe in 2015, The Forsythe Company. This fall, Boston Ballet and the Institute of Contemporary Art are partnering to welcome Forsythe back to the States for his five-year residency at the mseum, including a full program of Forsythe’s work in the spring season. At the ICA, “William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects”is on display from Oct. 31 to Feb. 21.

“Choreographic Objects” has previously been presented at global venues, such as London’s Tate Modern and Grande halle de la Villete in Paris. Forsythe now brings these interactive, site-responsive works to the Seaport area in Boston, marking his first comprehensive exhibition in the U.S. As hybrids of sculpture, artwork, video, and architectural spaces, “Choreographic Objects” invites participants to stimulate and interact with the ideas and movement of choreography. The choreography is as much pieces of artwork as they are spaces for performance and movement.

“Choreography is possible anywhere, and I believe in some ways that this exhibition is the most democratic expression of choreography,” Chief Curator of the ICA Eva Respini said.

With each “choreographic object,” Forsythe included specific physical instructions for visitors to follow, creating a unique space for individualized experiences in the gallery.

In “City of Abstracts,” which consists of a video wall, camera and computer software to delay the playback movements, Forsythe plays with the natural curiosity of humans.

Each small movement is converted by the software into dragged out, spiraling movements and shapes. A simple wave of the hand becomes an enthralling spiraling snake of the entire arm.

“What ends up happening is not just a call and response, but what you see on the screen is in fact a score for the piece itself,” Forsythe said at the opening.

In another room of the exhibition, “The Fact of Matter” features 600 polycarbonate gymnastic rings attached to the ceiling by polyester belts and steel rigging. Forsythe’s only instruction is simple: “Please traverse the space using only the rings.”

“The title will speak to you more clearly if you attempt to even go two feet into the work. You normally conceive of yourself as you are an integration of your self-image, of your weight, coordination, and strength,” Forsythe said. “These

three aspects are not always going to have integrity under all conditions.”

It is through the struggle of traversing the room where Forsythe sees the choreographic moments.

The ICA exhibition is also premiering two new Forsythe works, including “The Differential Room” which was made specifically for the museum. It features a series of chalkboards inscribed by Forsythe with a series of assignments, like “take five steps away from the bench then with your eyes closed, walk backwards and sit down.”

“In many of the works, it isn’t about the result, it’s about the effort,” Respini said.

In a following room, Forsythe continues this concept with a steel door titled “Aufwand” that looks like any ordinary door yet is incredibly hard to open due to spring mechanisms.

“You are employed by yourself to produce the work for yourself, not for others. The work can only be made through the work you wish to give to it,” Forsythe said. “We assume that these things are made for us, that the contemporary world of architecture is at our service. But what happens when you encounter uncooperative things? There’s a brief moment where you go ‘what?’”

Participants’ bodies naturally react to the struggle of opening the door. This is the choreography moment: When the knees bend, back arches, hips thrust back, and feet slide then grip on the ground.

“We have a variety of different choreographic objects.

We have massive sculptural room size filling site responsive works but also more intimate haptic individual experiences,” Respini said.

Other pieces of Forsythe’s exhibition include a video of breakdancer Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit and Julliard alumnus Riley Watts, a room of 80 swinging pendulums, rubber knots, and more.

When describing Forsythe during the ICA talk, Artistic Director of Boston Ballet Mikko Nissinen places Forsythe as the Michael Jackson of the dance world — a “demigod of art.” The exhibition at the ICA shows just why Nissinen gives Forsythe these titles.

“When Bill works with the dancers, I can see them grow,” Nissinen said. “At the San Francisco Ballet, within one single hour when I was working with Bill, I changed as a dancer, I thought about dance differently, and I danced everything differently.”

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TUESDAY

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II The Brattle Theater shows the sequel to the timeless time-warped classic. Marty McFly and Doc Brown team up again to save the time-space continuum, but this time they travel to the futuristic, hovercraft-filled, holographic year of 2015!

The Brattle Theater. 9:30 p.m. $8.50-$11:50

Wednesday DIWALI: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston celebrates the Festival of Lights! With music, dance, poetry, and galleries highlighting South Asian works, this event is bound to be a beautiful Boston fête observing a tradition treasured by many cultures and religions worldwide.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 4 p.m. Free.

Thursday CURATOR TOUR: EVA RESPINI ON WILLIAM FORSYTHE Join Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, in an exploration of the use of movement and bodily awareness in an exhibition by the world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe.

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. 6 p.m.

Free.

Friday MANIFESTO Follow two-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett as she embarks on a journey through modern art history, interleaving diverse artistic movements through stylized, individualized vignettes. Directed by Julian Rosefeldt.

The Brattle Theater. 10 p.m. $8.00-$10.00

Saturday FREEMAN’S: POWER Acclaimed writer John Freeman visits Harvard Book Store for a discussion of his recently released volume, “Power.”

Join the conversation as Freeman analyzes the influence of power through the lens of prominent female writers like Margaret Atwood and Aminatta Forna.

Harvard Book Store. 7 p.m. Free

Sunday “BUY ME, BOSTON” BOOK LAUNCH EVENT Take a trip with Brian Coleman as he asserts creative authority, presenting a curated slideshow with content from his new book. Learn about the obscure, bizarre advertising techniques utilized by businesses, bands, and boosters of antiquity.

The Brattle Theater. 9:30 p.m. $10.00

MOnday HOW FASCISM WORKS: THE POLITICS OF US AND THEM Join author Jason Stanley as he explores fascism and its manifestation in countries with democratic ideals.

Engage in the discussion The Harvard Book Store. 7 p.m. Free

COURTESY OF AURELIA HAN

06 NOVEMBER 2018 | Vol CXLV, ISSUE XIX Arts Chairs Mila Gauvin II `19 Grace Z. Li `19

Editor Associates Kaylee S. Kiam ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20 Aline G. Damas ’20

Noah F. Houghton ’20 Edward M. Litwin ’19 Petra Laura Oreskovic ’20 Ethan B. Reichsman ’19 Yael M. Saiger ’19 Caroline E. Tew ’20 Jonathan P. Trang ’19 Lucy Wang ’20

Executive Designer Hanna Kim `21

Design Associates Mireya C. Arango ‘20 Emily H. Hong ‘21 Jessica N. Morandi ‘21

Executive Photographers Kathryn S. Kuhar `20

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | NOVEMBER 6, 2018 | PAGE 4

FILM

Sean Anders on Adopting Three Kids and the Realities of the Foster Care System SIENNA R. SANTER CONTRIBUTING WRITER COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Joking with his wife and three children after a press screening of his new film, Sean Anders and his kids seem like any other American family. Except for one detail: All three kids are adopted. Based on his personal experience fostering and then adopting his children, Anders wrote and directed the movie “Instant Family,” a film about a married couple (played

by Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne) who suddenly decide to start a family by fostering three siblings: argumentative, teenage Lizzy (Isabela Moner), anxious Juan (Gustavo Quiroz), and stubborn Lita (Julianna Gamiz).

Unlike how classics like “Stuart Little” or even “Annie” have typically depicted adoption in family films, Anders’s film tells the unglamorized version, filled with emergency room visits, arguments, tantrums, and sheer exhaustion. It was important for him to depict the realities of foster care — in which a couple and several children are thrown together and expected to become a nuclear family overnight — as opposed to the Hollywood ideal, pulling from a variety of stories in order to represent as many different experiences as possible. “From the beginning the idea was that we were going to tell a fictional story that was inspired by my own story, but [that was] also inspired by the stories of a lot of people that we have met along the way,” Anders said.

Anders stressed how important it was for him to reflect the entire fostering process in the film, not just the happy parts. “There is a scene where Mark and Rose are sitting in bed and talking about what a

terrible mistake they’ve made and how there’s got to be some way back to the clean, happy life they had before,” Anders said. “And my wife and I have had that conversation a number of times, and we’ve come to find out that that’s a pretty relatable scene for a lot of adoptive families, and even [for] people with biological kids.”

While Anders shared that he and his wife were intimidated by the notion of adopting, they ended up connecting with a teenage girl and her two younger siblings, exactly like in the movie. “We got matched with them, and they were going to be our kids,” Anders said. “And we got excited about it actually. And then we got a call from the social worker, and she said that the teen girl had been in care for four years, and she was understandably very connected to her birth mother, and she was still holding out hope that her birth mom was coming back for her. The social worker didn’t think that that was very likely, but the girl had turned down the placement for her and her siblings because she wanted to remain available for her mom...

That’s where the Lizzie character was born.”

Another important factor in creating the film, Anders explained, was casting actors who were truly invested in his mission of telling the humorous, yet often difficult, truth behind adoption. “Mark [Wahlberg] had met a lot of kids in [foster] care over his travels, so when I suggested the idea to Mark, he jumped in right away and was really excited about doing it,” Anders said. Rose Byrne was equally committed. “The first thing she did is she sat down with my wife, and sat

down with a bunch of adoptive moms, and she really did her homework,” Anders added.

Pondering the relationship between comedy and social commentary, Anders said, “If you engage people emotionally and get them to feel something emotionally and then turn that into a laugh, it gives you the best feeling that you can have… Throughout the movie, we’re trying not to shy from the tragedy and the trauma that’s involved with kids coming out of the foster care system, but the reality is that [with] any family that you meet that goes through it, they’ll tell you that there’s a lot of laughter, that you have to laugh, and you have to find the sense of humor in some of these dark things.” Anders laughed himself as he explained his kids’ reaction to seeing themselves on the big screen. “Now they’re sick of it. They’re kind of like, ‘Okay, enough with this movie.’”

“I’m hoping that when people come see the movie, they laugh a lot and they have a good time, and that they have a different idea of who these kids are, and then hopefully if someone in their family or someone they know wants to foster kids or wants to adopt, that they’ll be supportive about it and positive rather than maybe cautioning them or being worried about it,” Anders said. “I think when people hear the words ‘foster care’ it brings to mind a lot of negativity and fear, and what I found in my travels through the system, over and over again, is that you meet the kids, and you go ‘Oh, they’re just kids. They’re just kids, and they need families and they need love, and they have love to give, just like any other kids.’”

BOOKS COURTESY OF SIENNA SANTER

Top Five Reads to Cuddle Up with This November SIENNA R. SANTER CONTRIBUTING WRITER This November, as the homesickness sets in, the stress of midterms heightens, and the dining hall food fails to satisfy, it’s time to cozy up with a few good reads. Compiled below is a roundup of autumn’s best prose featuring family, fall leaves, rainy weather, and of course, turkey.

5. “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame A heartwarming classic, this children’s tale actually contains countless poignant lessons that even college students can benefit from. Written in 1908, the tale follows the adventures of several anthropomorphic animals as they navigate the worlds of friendship, adventure, and class systems. Filled with descriptions of nature and landscape, it is the perfect fall adventure.

Not simply a children’s story, Grahame’s classic comments on the nature of social hierarchy and the relationship between a luxurious country-house upper class and a revolutionary workingclass. This tale will pique your imagination, leave you feeling nostalgic about your childhood, and remind you to treat everyone with a little more kindness this season.

4. “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt Following a California boy named Richard as he navigates the world of an elite liberal arts college, this novel may hit a little too close to home. However, it follows several snobby and elitist classics students and their professor as they deal with the aftermath of the murder of one of their classmates, so let’s hope it isn’t too true to life. With tales of betrayal, immorality, and intrigue, all set in a quintessential New England liberal arts university, this book is the perfect read to delve into from the comfort of your dorm room.

3. “The Cider House Rules” by John Irving This heart-wrenching novel by John Irving is considered one of his best. Set in early 20th century Maine, the plot follows Dr. Larch, who runs an orphanage and is an abortion doctor, and Homer Wells, the orphan Larch practically raises. Irving deals with a quite controversial and difficult topic, the book is a thought-provoking look at the realities of abortion at a time when it was illegal in America. Perhaps most poignant, however, are the relationships depicted in the novel and the stunning characters that are easy to empathize with. The beautiful descriptions

of mist and never-ending fog throughout make this the perfect book to read cozied up in a coffee shop or wrapped in a blanket. Thoughtful, nostalgic, and incredibly well-written, “The Cider House Rules” is a beautiful coming-of-age tale that will not only make you think, but make you feel.

2. “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving” by Louisa May Alcott One of the “Little Women” author’s lesser-known short stories follows the Bassett family in New Hampshire as the children are tasked with preparing Thanksgiving dinner while the parents are called away by a family emergency. Having grown up in Concord, a mere half-hour drive from Harvard — and where “Little Women” was subsequently set — Alcott is no stranger to the autumnal allure of Massachusetts. A light read, this sweet tale will remind you of everything you love about fall in New England, offering everything a short story set in November should: humorous family dynamics, a cozy indoor setting with a roaring fire, and descriptions of warm apple pie. Pick this up in between psets for a wholesome study break that will have you yearning for a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with your family.

1. “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë Set against the Yorkshire moors of England, this Victorian classic is the perfect book to curl up with on a rainy day. Bonus points if you’re sipping a cup of tea. The descriptions of the gloomy weather will perfectly match the scene outside your window, and the wild English setting is a kind of comforting chaos. Set as a frame tale — or a story within a story — it is a difficult yet engrossing read, exploring the lives of an isolated and not so socially acceptable family. While the characters are neither heartwarming nor particularly likeable, Catherine and Heathcliff’s tumultuous relationship is a deep look into the flaws that make us human. There is an elusiveness to this book that simply demands it be read.

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | NOVEMBER 6, 2018 | PAGE 5

TV

‘Bodyguard’ Brings to Light the Danger of Fearmongering ALINE G. DAMAS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER “We’re politicians, not murderers.” This line, spoken by an advisor to the British Home Secretary during police inquiries, reflects a central theme in BBC One’s hit television series “Bodyguard,” now available on Netflix. The show does a superb job of raising questions about Britain’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the rehabilitation of soldiers all while providing fast-paced action. With compelling acting and a tense soundtrack that engenders serious vicarious anxiety, this series will both enthrall and terrify.

The dashing Richard Madden stars as an Afghanistan war veteran turned cop, Sergeant David Budd, who, after thwarting a terrorist attack on a train, is assigned to protect the staunchly conservative home secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes). Budd has reservations about becoming her bodyguard, because she supported the very war that shattered his life — one that left him physically scarred, suffering from PTSD, and separated from his wife Vicky (Sophie Rundle). In his new role, Budd quickly becomes exposed to the dubious world of politics. His superiors at the Metropolitan Police, boss Lorraine Craddock (Pippa Haywood), and head of counter terrorism Commander Anne Samson (Gina McKee), ask him to spy on Montague, suspecting her of corruption and fearmongering. This assignment makes him uneasy, but only more so when he begins an affair with Montague. As continual attacks are made on the home secretary’s life due to internal leaks, Budd struggles to trust those around him. He begins to suspect and investigate a larger, more dangerous, power at hand.

Madden is exceptionally strong in the role of a traumatized Scottish vet. We often see events through his eyes, learning clues when he does or else travelling with him as he investigates. Though he tries suppress it, Budd’s PTSD often gets the better of him. He suffers from frequent panic attacks during which the camera zooms on his face, blurring out the surroundings as intense buzzing blares. These instances are particularly useful in exposing Budd’s frame of mind and allowing access to his tumultuous feelings. Moments like these are also intended to bring to mind the government’s involvement in recent wars draw particular attention to the difficulties that veterans face in reintegrating into

society after witnessing unfathomable atrocities.

Hawes is riveting as Montague. Though in many ways her character presents controversial opinions, she is a formidable force of power and her unapologetic attitude is refreshing. She and Madden have excellent chemistry, which almost comes at a surprise given how their relationship begins. Generally speaking, strong female characters bolster the cast — particularly Haywood and McKee with their biting sardonic comments — who prove to be quite a match for many of the condescending males in power.

The show is also concerned with how governments weaponize fear and deeply ingrained xenophobia in order to control citizens and strip them of civil liberties.

Montague is most emblematic of this as she plays on people’s distress over terrorism to gain power within her government, but the show also implies that most of the upper-level members of government are equally susceptible to these manipulation During a scene early in the first episode, David re-watches Montague’s latest interview, repeatedly rewinding a section during which she gives her thoughts on British interference in the Middle East. Her sentiments on past actions could not be any more clear: “The PM has been very clear on how we deal with the present and build a secure future. That doesn’t require apologizing for the past.” The camera moves in closer to Madden’s livid and fuming face, as the words loop over and over, his rage and trauma growing increasingly palpable. This disapproval and criticism over the Afghanistan War is not a particularly fresh opinion, but this excellently constructed scene exemplifies how the show manages to capture important issues and portray them in electrifying ways.

The excellent soundtrack composed by Ruth Barrett and Ruskin Williamson is also a star of the show. It almost single-handedly enlivens and intensifies the fighting and bomb defusing scenes. Altogether, the combination of high-quality stylistics and frightening, slightly melodramatic action scenes makes the show lively.

Staff Writer Aline G. Damas can be reached at aline.damas@thecrimson.com.

COURTESY OF???

THEATER

‘Next to Normal’ is Anything but Ordinary EZRA H. LEBOVITZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF LAUREN A SIERRA ‘19

In the director’s note for “Next to Normal,” Kier Zimmerman ’20 described the show as a portrayal of “the ugly of mental illness” — the pain it can cause and the suffering it can bring. Zimmerman insisted that the performance was eschewing the use of mental illness as an “empty buzzword” by Harvard organizations. The show, which played at Farkas Hall from Nov. 1 to 3, attempted to bring a voice to this “ugly,” lending a realism to this complex, powerfully-constructed performance.

“Next to Normal” is a 2008 musical written by Brian Yorkey with music by Tom Kitt.

The show explores the lives of the Goodman family as they navigate Diana Goodman (Sarah B. Rossman ’19), who has bipolar disorder, and her struggle with bipolar disorder.

Delving heavily into questions of loss, dysfunction, and intimacy, this production of “Next to Normal” was produced as part of Rossman’s TDM senior thesis.

The strong cast was key to defining the production: The acting was remarkably realistic, feeling exposed and intimate. The rich vocals were matched with emotional weight. Rossman did an excellent job in her portrayal of Diana Goodman, capturing the audience’s attention with her intensity and ferocity. She gave Diana a depth of emotion that carried the entire show. Having said this, however, another stand-out easily included Sara Bobok ’19, who played Diana’s daughter Natalie Goodman. Bobok successfully showcased the profound anxiety that characterized Natalie. Natalie’s father, Dan Goodman, played by Jake A. Corvino ’19, showed a similar range, performing with rawness and authenticity. On the whole, the cast’s performance was incredibly compelling and marked by realism.

The music pit, composed of undergraduate students from Harvard, Berklee, and Boston University, was equally strong, especially due to an extraordinary string section.

The septet skillfully coordinated with the vocals and maintained an impressive dynamic balance. They also successfully paid tribute to a complex and nuanced soundtrack, merging rock styles with more traditional harmonies quite seamlessly. The lighting was the silent hero of the show — it subtly created intermittent moments of otherworldliness through a harshness that helped to sustain the play’s unique atmosphere.

Despite the strength of the performance, it is worth noting that no singular narrative about mental illness is all-encompassing or ideal. The production explicitly acknowledged this difficulty, forcing the audience to ask question what it means to portray mentally ill characters and how we consume content on this topic. In the playbill, Rossman acknowledged that narratives about this topic are never without flaws and encouraged audience members to continue the conversations beyond the boundaries of the show. This commitment to continued conversation was another critical part of the production and what made it all the more significant.

“Next to Normal” was a storied look at the complexity and ugliness associated with mental illness and grief. It forced the audience to engage in the recreation of loss and pain, while simultaneously taking a critical lens to the way we talk about and cope with mental illness. The Goodman family’s struggle with mental illness and its impacts didn’t end with the closing number. Rather, the show’s central takeaway relies on the ways we continue to live with pain.The production is a powerful homage to endurance in an imperfect and painful world.

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | NOVEMBER 6, 2018 | PAGE 6

MUSIC

Twenty One Pilots Brings the Heat to TD Garden JACK M. SCHROEDER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF WILLIAM H. WU

Even as lead singer Tyler Joseph told the crowd he’d see them again the next time around, Twenty One Pilots’ set at TD Garden felt like the end of the band. Much of this had to do with the subject matter of their most recent album, “Trench.” Lyrics like “They know that it’s almost over” from the album’s closing track allude to the fact that the band’s “Bandito” tour may be their last. Regardless, singer Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun gave it their all in Boston, demonstrating that their spectacle was not without substance.

The band’s entrance set the tone for the rest of the night. Dun initially took the stage after the curtain fell from its rails, masked and holding a lit torch. Joseph then rose up through the stage floor on top of an old car engulfed in flames, also masked. They opened with a few new tracks — ”Jumpsuit” and “Levitate” among them — and performed with remarkable intensity.

The show’s set pieces matched that intensity. Fittingly, risers on the stage levitated during “Levitate.” In the middle of “Fairly Local,” Joseph climbed up onto a riser that elevated him about 20 feet. He then fell backward into a pit in the center of the stage and disappeared. All was black and silent until Joseph reappeared in one of the lower bowl sections and finished the song, taking his mask off after the final chorus to prove he was not a double. A red beanie, reminiscent of the band’s “Blurryface” era, descended from above before “Stressed Out.” Twenty One Pilots transitioned into the show’s quieter moments by physically moving to a b-stage at the other end of the stadium. Their paths to the stage mirrored each member’s personality: Joseph walked over on a descended light fixture, while Dun simply walked.

If any part of the show felt lacking, it was when the band brought Awolnation (of “Sail” fame) and Max Frost, the openers, back onto the stage. They did a good job with the covers — Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” and The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” — but their inclusion felt like an unneeded tonal departure. The duo quickly rebounded, though, with their hit song “Ride,” as they left the covers behind as the only questionable part of the night.

The b-stage featured the show’s most emotional moments. Joseph justified the change of pace by saying the band members’ fathers wanted a time to rest their legs. He then told everyone in the crowd to sit down. A new curtain fell over the stage, with a video projected on it. Joseph told a story about “Taxi Cab,” off their eponymous debut, mentioning that it was the first song he ever added a rap to. He delivered that rap — which focuses on

an encounter with God after a suicide attempt — flawlessly, never losing the crowd during its emotional rollercoaster. Returning to songs on “Trench,”“Neon Gravestones” matched that emotion with its timely discussion of celebrity suicides. The song and its accompanying visual played off the album’s vulture motif. The other songs on the b-stage, while not as blatantly emotional, dealt with topics like acceptance and writer’s block. “Pet Cheetah,” a song structured around Joseph’s obsession with tinkering with “Trench” before its release, served as a transition back to the front stage. Joseph rapped the entirety of the song on the descended light fixture, which disappeared into the ceiling after the song’s ending.

Joseph and Dun displayed remarkable stamina throughout the concert. Joseph’s voice was able to hit both high notes (especially during “My Blood” and “Morph”) and intense yelling (“Car Radio” and “Holding On To You”). And even throughout a 22-song, drum-heavy set, Dun never missed a beat. He looked like he was enjoying himself, at one point taking off his shirt to reveal “Go Red Sox” written in Sharpie on his chest. Joseph took particular interest in the World Series game, at first refusing to say the score out of respect for those who DVR’d it, before eventually motivating the crowd before the show closer by mentioning that the score was tied but that the Sox would find it in them to win.

His prediction was a bit off: The Sox lost to the Dodgers in the early hours of Saturday after 18 innings of baseball.

The show was also physically demanding for both members. At one point, Dun backflipped off a piano, while Joseph made parkour-esque jumps at multiple times during the show. At some points during the set, however, certain members of the pit had to show their own strength. Instead of crowd surfing, Joseph sang while being held up by the crowd after returning from the b-stage. Dun performed a drum solo during “Morph” on a platform also being held up by some strong concertgoers on the floor. Before the show closer, “Trees,” Joseph asked the crowd if they had one more song left in them. At that point, it was astonishing that they had enough energy to keep going. With another set piece, this one involving both members drumming while being supported by the crowd, the band left the stage with Joseph proclaiming, “We’re Twenty One Pilots, and so are you!” With bursts of confetti and uplifting synths, “Trees” encapsulated a night that showed Twenty One Pilots at their best: spectacle without compromise.

COLUMN

Low End Theory: Enjajaja NICHOLAS P. WHITTAKER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

To Enya Umanzor, being Latina is a joke.

Enya is a Vine star: She has made her name posting Vines, seven second videos filled with slapstick comedy, cursing, and child-like ridiculousness, on social media for her thousands of followers. Enya’s comedy is deeply intertwined with her Latinidad and womanhood. But, both in content and form, it also challenges notions of how laughter and marginalized identity can coexist.

Enya challenges us to ask: What does it mean to laugh, not with, but at, Brown bodies? What does it mean, that is, to be a minstrel?

Minstrelsy is the performance of caricature. As in caricature, the political and ethical power of the marginalized body is neutered, reduced to the status of a plaything. And, as has caricature, minstrelsy has largely disappeared from the realm of high art, while low art’s resistance to standards of taste opens itself up to the practice. No low art form better demonstrates this than that guerilla, pubescent form of comedy we call Vines, which even after the official site was archived have continued to circulate across social media.

Dubbed digital Blackface, social media comedy has seen a rise in the use of Black and Brown mannerisms and bodies for comedic effect. Enya is no exception.

In one Vine, Enya complains: “How are some kids so fucking rude to their parents? If I was that rude my parents would throw a tortilla so fast at me it would chop my head off!” Enya often plays off of her Latinidad. Her urban femme Latinx identity is a punchline. Enya listening to Big Poppa is a punchline. Enya not liking President Trump (because he will buy more toupées!) is a punchline. Enya liking tacos is a punchline.

Enya does not portray a Latina woman, but a racist, misogynistic notion of a Latina woman. She, in a move reminiscent of Auntie Walker, lets herself become a caricature. Enya is a force, a pubescent bruja who reeks of inner-city-Miami absurdity and Gen Z transgression. She barrels through life, camera in hand, loudly cursing at her

parents, God, and country. She mimes “sitting on dicks”; she screams “We want some pussy!”; she punches her siblings.

In so embodying caricature, Enya lets those watching her, including and especially white folks, laugh at her being Latina.

What can this be but minstrelsy? And why should we ever embrace such an aesthetic?

How can a marginalized artist be other than a minstrel?

Like SOPHIE, they would have to construct a presentation of their identity that frees itself from the gaze of those in power.

But this depends on a hermetic art, an art that exists solely for marginalized people. Is this possible, in a world where mass art is made accessible for all, where low art is defined by its universality, where white consumption of Brown art is not an exception, but the rule? Perhaps the attempts of marginalized artists to escape the racializing, gendering glare of the powerful are futile.

If freedom is impossible, if the marginalized artist will always be viewed by those in power, and in that consumption be rendered into an object stripped of humanity, a caricature, then what hope is there for an aesthetics of freedom, an artistic project of self-definition?

Enya is not the first artist to become a minstrel. The theorist José Esteban Muñoz explores minstrelsy through the Cubano performance style of choteo, an underground, low form of theater in which the performer both becomes and mocks the role performed. Performance, in choteo, becomes an interrogation of, not assimilation into, socially mandated roles.

This is exactly what Enya does. She performs, for the sake of her white viewers, the American nightmare of the sexed-up, drugged-up, foul-mouthed Latina girl. Minstrelsy has never been an accurate representation of authentic Blackness or Latinidad. It is a performance thereof, an absurd heightening of the features of marginalized existence that does not align with the lived experience of those identities. And in this performance, there is power.

The performance of the minstrel, to quote Muñoz, is “forced labor.” The slave dances, twisted grin like a noose

wrapped around their neck, because they must, or they will die. They play the part they are given, because they must, or they will die.

But Enya chooses to perform. If we think of performance as the playing of a role that one is not, Enya reveals that the twisted notion of Latinidad that America holds dear is a joke in reaching so far away from the standards of good taste — in heightening Latinidad to levels of absurdity.

Enya’s performance is parody. And like all good parody, it utterly deconstructs the object of its humor. For Enya, this object is not Latinidad (Enya is not advocating for postracialism) but rather the twisted caricature forced upon Latinx people. Enya deconstructs this caricature not by rationally arguing against it, nor by presenting an alternative, but by leaning into it. To laugh at Enya is to laugh at the racist caricature itself.

Low art, that is, gives us a final, thrilling possibility. We need not become lost in a desperate game of respectability politics. That will only bind us to a never-ending game of power and privilege. Nor do we need to make futile attempts to escape the gaze of those in power.

The raw materials for liberation are already at hand. They are not the master’s tools, but rather the master’s garbage, that which he has foolishly cast away. The minstrel embodies every distasteful notion and expectation placed against marginalized peoples. Rather than flee these notions, the minstrel causes them to self-detonate.

IIt is in the most profane moments, when one is most firmly in the dung-filled chasm of the low, that the cracks in the crystal castle of whiteness begin to show.

All it takes is one good laugh, one sharp outtake of breath, and it all comes crashing down.

Contributing writer Nicholas P. Whittaker’s column, “Low End Theory,” digs deep into the archive of bad, taboo, and ugly art, seeking political liberation in the low.

Page 7

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | november 6, 2018

stakes From Page 1

Harvard Implicated in Midterms prominent lawmakers, and met with VIPs around the country.

As he lobbies Congress, Bacow has kept three main Harvard interests at the top of his mind. The Crimson breaks down what they are — and how the midterms could affect each one.

1. The Endowment Tax

One of the president’s top lobbying priorities is convincing legislators to repeal a recently passed tax on Harvard’s endowment.

Enacted during the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, the legislation requires Harvard and other institutions with endowments greater than $500,000 per student to pay a 1.4 percent excise tax on endowment returns. The tax — which will take effect for the 2019 fiscal year — would have cost Harvard $43 million in 2017, according to University estimates.

Soon after taking office, Bacow journeyed to Washington, D.C. to persuade legislators that the endowment tax will not accomplish their stated goal of making college more affordable.

In an interview last month, Bacow said the tax will not only increase the cost of higher education but will also make it harder to raise money for financial aid.

“I try to explain to them why I think this is lousy public policy,” Bacow said of his lobbying efforts in another interview last week. “At least those that I’ve talked to seem to be quite receptive to the arguments that I’m making.”

“Whether or not that results in changes in the law will depend upon both the outcome of the elections and what gets introduced as legislation in the next Congress,” he added.

So, how could the midterms affect the tax?

The vast majority of Democrats oppose the endow-

ment tax and prominent party leaders including Sen. Elizabeth Warren have spoken out against it. If Democrats earn the 23 seats necessary to regain control of the House of Representatives Tuesday, Bacow’s goal of rescinding the Republican-backed tax is probably one step closer towards reality.

A Washington Post-ABC news poll released Sunday showed Democrats in the lead in the battle to retake the House by seven percentage points.

2. Immigration Status of Harvard Affiliates

Though he has not returned to Washington since his first trip, Bacow recently met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at Harvard to discuss immigration — another issue high on his list of University concerns.

Bacow said he and Pelosi spoke about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status, two Obama-era policies meant to protect undocumented youth and adults. Almost immediately after taking office, President Donald Trump began rolling back these programs — and hasn’t let up since. He repealed DACA in Sept. 2017 — though courts have since challenged his decision — and curtailed TPS, suspending it for individuals from certain countries, in Jan. 2018.

In a January interview, Harvard spokesperson Melodie L. Jackson said the Trump administration’s efforts to curb TPS will affect “several dozen” workers at Harvard. The school had roughly 65 undocumented affiliates in 2017.

Students and staff have called on Bacow to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Drew G. Faust, by publicly advocating for the continuation of DACA and TPS.

lawsuit From Page 1

3. Harvard’s Sanctions on Single-Gender Social Groups

Tuesday’s election could also reshape the fate of Harvard’s controversial sanctions on members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations.

The penalties, which took effect with the Class of 2021, bar members of single-gender final clubs and Greek organizations from campus leadership posi-

tions, the captaincies of varsity athletic teams, and from receiving College endorsement for prestigious fellowships like the Rhodes. But a bill dubbed the PROSPER Act could imperil Harvard’s ability to enforce its sanctions.

The PROSPER Act, a revision of the Higher Education Act, includes a provision that could bar the University from penalizing students who join single-gender social groups. If it passes, Harvard might be forced to choose between its sanctions and millions of dollars in federal funding. But it’s probably not going to pass, experts say — and a blue wave would only decrease the bill’s shot at becoming law.

Democrats are unlikely to support the PROSPER Act, which Republicans proposed in the first place. Even for Republicans, the bill is not a top priority, analysts say.

The amendment related to social groups is just one of many provisions contained in the bill. Others include acts that could limit some students’ ability to pay for college. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce voted the bill out of committee in December 2017.

Legislators have yet to schedule it for discussion on the House floor.

Former University President Drew G. Faust that in a May interview that Bacow would be “very much focused” on the reauthorizton of the act.

Bacow said in an interview last week that the PROSPER Act will likely fail to pass in Congress, though he noted that alterations to the “form” of the bill may change that.

“There will be a new bill introduced in the next Congress and we’ll take a look on what’s in that new bill,” Bacow said.

“There will be a new Congress.”

From the Law School to Longwood,

molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com

assault From Page 1

Lawsuit Impact on Funding Unclear light of this revelation, University President Lawrence S. Bacow again declined to comment.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he said.

Bacow said that he does not receive frequent updates on donations.

“It’s not as if we monitor donations on daily basis,” he said.

“I don’t get a daily report. Or a weekly report. Or a monthly report.”

Higher education expert Thomas D. Parker ‘64 said elite universities have always given children from wealthy backgrounds an edge in their admissions processes — partly to sustain their donor base.

“There’s a reason that Harvard is one of the best places in the world and that’s because it has a lot of money. And one of the reasons it has a lot of money is that it has been very very successful at private fundraising,” he said.

“And part of that success has to do with not just admitting legacies, but admitting rich people.”

“These aren’t revelations that are coming out of this,” he added, referring to the lawsuit.

Robert Moore, an executive at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, said it is too early to predict the effect the lawsuit may have on giving.

He also said he is unsure how Harvard’s development team will talk about the lawsuit with donors.

“We also don’t know in the end what the Harvard development staff is going to do as they start to talk to donors,” he said.

“It’s a dimensional relationship that is developed over some years.”

Moore pointed to other schools involved in controversies that have bounced back from negative perceptions — though he noted he “cannot project” if the same will hold true for Harvard.

“If you think about alumni, alumni know the institution and they know its faults,” he said. “And maybe a controversy like this brings some of those faults to the fore, but they also know with greater depth the real qualities of the institution.

And if they believe in the institution, then what they will want to know is how is the institution responding to this challenge.”

“I made a number of statements in my inaugural address about the importance of continuing to be open as a country to those who seek freedom and opportunity, as well as to those who would like to come to Harvard to study and to work,” Bacow said in an interview last week.

Bacow isn’t talking only to Pelosi. The president said he has also spoken to other members of Congress about immigration in meetings held in Cambridge, on phone calls, and throughout his travels across the United States.

Though he declined to name those legislators, Bacow said they hail from “both sides of the aisle.”

If Democrats take the House, Bacow’s stated mission — protecting Harvard affiliates eligible for DACA and TPS — could get easier. Pelosi has said protecting DACA beneficiaries is a legislative priority. Some analysts have suggested that, if the midterms usher in a blue wave, the Democrats could seek to trade DACA or an expanded version of DACA for Trump’s long-promised border wall.

And, though Democrats cannot overturn Trump’s executive orders, a Democrat-dominated House could take steps to aggressively scrutinize the administration’s DACA and TPS policy shakeups, among other things.

Parker raised the point that a Supreme Court ruling striking down Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy may actually boost donations if Harvard opts to defy the ruling and keep its admissions process, risking federal funding.

Parker speculated that this string of events might motivate donors to give to the University to offset the loss of federal funds. But, he added, it would be tricky to make up the hundreds of millions of dollars per year Harvard receives from the government.

Michael T. Kerr ‘81, a former co-chair of the Harvard College Fund Executive Committee, said he anticipated the lawsuit will have no effect on current donors, since many of the alum-

I don’t think it’s going to affect as things stand now.

Michael T. Kerr ’81 Former Co-Chair of the Harvard College Fund Executive Committee

ni support the school’s efforts to diversify its student population.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect as things stand now,” Kerr said. “I don’t think the school’s relationship with its alumni will be affected by the trial, because I think most of the alumni I know broadly, broadly support having a diverse student body.”

Asked whether the lawsuit against Harvard would change his giving to the University, Paul A. Buttenwieser ’60, a former Crimson editor and a former member of the Board of Overseers, answered “not at all.”

Buttenwieser also said other donors have told him they plan to stick to their current giving.

“Everybody I have talked to feels that Harvard’s admissions policy is great, Dean Fitzsimmons... [has] brought about much more diversity than Harvard has ever known, all the donors I know are very much in favor of diversity and we see this lawsuit as a challenge to diversity,” Buttenwieser said. eli.burnes@thecrimson.com andrew.zucker@thecrimson.com

Woman Punched on MBTA Red Line Friday “This was a disgusting display of violence,” he wrote. “It is our sincere hope Campbell’s arrest will serve notice, behavior such as this or any acts of violence on the MBTA will will not be tolerated.”

Sullivan also wrote the MBTA will work with the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office to “ensure Campbell is held accountable for her egregious conduct.”

The transit police website

noted that all events remain allegations at this stage. “All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” the statement reads.

This is not the first incident to occur on the Red Line this fall.

In September, a 66-year-old man was struck and killed by a train at Porter Square station.

The Crimson

@crimsonflyby

jordan.virtue@thecrimson.com

title ix From Page 1

Policy Changes May Affect Harvard Title IX A 2011 Dear Colleague letter that first set federal recommendations for campus sexual assault adjudication stated that the Office for Civil Rights — a subset of the Department of Education — “strongly discourages schools from allowing the parties personally to question or cross-examine each other” during hearings, since this “may be traumatic or intimidating, thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment.”Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded that Obama-era letter in Sept. 2017.

Colby Bruno, a lawyer with the Victim Rights Law Center, wrote that allowing cross-examination by the accused could be “seriously traumatizing for the accuser.”

“Survivors face many obstacles to reporting and disclosing. These new guidelines would create more obstacles for them to report and be safe. Sadly, that seems to be exactly what the Department of Education’s goals are,” Bruno wrote in an email.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.

“The whole logic for these guidelines comes out of this belief among the Trump administration that there’s this huge false accusation problem, and that’s just really not the case,” said Remedy H. Ryan ’21, a member of campus anti-sexual assault advocacy organization Our Harvard Can Do Better.

The new guidelines “would

just make the complaint process more difficult for survivors,” she added.

Harvard Law School Professor Diane L. Rosenfeld, who teaches a course on Title IX, speculated that the leaked draft guidelines “could likely change” from their current iteration, after the required notice-and-comment period. That portion of the regulatory process allows the public to provide feedback on changes to rules executive agencies propose.

“Many of the things that are in the policy are legally very problematic,” Rosenfeld said.

“They seek to import private law standards and criminal justice standards into a civil rights context for school adjudication under Title IX. And they’re just simply not the same legal and regulatory system, so the same rules don’t apply.”

Rosenfeld also said the Department of Education is legally obligated to take all comments into account while the guidelines are open for notice-and-comment.

When the department issues them in final form, however, Harvard might need to change its procedures for adjudicating sexual misconduct complaints.

Under the University’s current procedures for investigating formal complaints, investigators interview complainants and respondents separately.

Asked whether Harvard would change its policy if the draft guidelines take effect, University spokesperson Nate Herpich wrote in an email, “It

would be premature for us to respond at this time, as no changes have been made as of yet.”

The Trump administration’s stance on Title IX also provoked uproar last month, when the New York Times reported that the administration was considering codifying a definition of gender in Title IX that would effectively define transgender people out of existence.

In its current form, the new set of Department of Education guidelines does not contain a definition of gender. Instead, the U.S. Department of Justice is exploring the option of issuing a legal opinion that would restrict determinations of gender to a person’s genitals at birth, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In an Oct. 30 interview, University President Lawrence S. Bacow said Harvard remains committed to its “policy of inclusion” and “non-discrimina-

Many of the things that are in the policy are legally very problematic.

Diane L. Rosenfeld HLS Professor

tion.”

“We don’t know what policy changes there’s going to be yet,” Bacow said, adding that Harvard’s commitment to inclusion “will not change.”

“We will see what the ad-

ministration does, but we’re committed to our policy,” he said.

In an email to undergraduates last week, Director of BGLTQ Student Life Sheehan D. Scarborough wrote that though it is uncertain as to whether this change will pass, the College will continue to support transgender and gender non-binary students.

“The existence of transgender and gender non-binary people is not hypothetical or abstract, nor should it be up for debate. You have a right to live without fear, to be visible, and to thrive. Harvard College’s position on this matter will not change,” Scarborough wrote.

“Our current non-discrimination policy includes protections on the basis of sex and gender identity, and we affirm and celebrate the diversity of gender identities and expressions represented in our community,” he added.

University Title IX Officer Nicole M. Merhill said that since the University adopted its current sexual- and gender-based harassment policy in 2014, it has consistently “gone beyond” federal Title IX guidelines.

“We’ve incorporated provisions that prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but sexual orientation and gender identity. And it’s our intent to uphold those values of inclusivity in the Harvard community,” she said. simone.chu@thecrimson.com

November 6, 2018

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | november 6, 2018

stats From Page 1

Statistics Dept. Works to Recruit More Women Singer, who received her PhD in Statistics from Harvard in 1983, said the Statistics department was “very, very much gender-imbalanced for decades.”

“This was a department that always had female graduate students but never had female faculty, ever,” Singer said.

Singer attributed the imbalance to the small size of the department and a conspicuous lack of undergraduate concentrators in its early years.

“I think the more striking trend is that there are undergraduates who are concentrating and taking classes in statistics,” Singer said. “When I was a PhD student, if there was an undergraduate around, that was an unusual phenomenon.”

Professor Xihong Lin, who holds a joint appointment in the Statistics Department and the Biostatistics Department at the School of Public Health, said that peer departments at Stanford and UC Berkeley have historically had larger statistics programs. As recently as 2008, the Harvard Statistics Department had fewer than 20 undergraduate concentrators. Today, that number has increased more than seven-fold.

Remembering her time as a graduate student in the department, Singer said she has seen an evolution in attitudes towards gender representation among faculty over the years.

She shared an anecdote about Frederick Mosteller, who was the founding chair of the Statistics Department and her own PhD advisor. “Fred was actually a wonderful man who gave opportunities to women, but it was just not a department that could see its way to diversifying its faculty effectively,” Singer said.

She pointed to a moment during a reception in Loeb House to celebrate Mosteller’s retirement in 1987. The former Chair had introduced his wife to at-

tendees with an off-hand joke that Singer — at the time, one of only a few women in Statistics — still remembers clearly.

“He said, ‘every statistician needs a wife,’” Singer recalled, to which an alumus of the department interjected, “Fred, some of us are wives.”

‘A TEAM EFFORT’

According to Interim Dean of Sciences Christopher W. Stubbs, one of Harvard administrators’ main objectives when hiring new faculty members is to maximize representation across the faculty body and ensure that students “can see people that look and feel like them in the classroom.”

“Every step along the way in the [hiring] process... the administration is looking over the shoulder of these [faculty] searches as they’re executed and making sure that they’re meeting our broad educational objectives,” Stubbs said.

He lauded the efforts of former Dean of Sciences Jeremy Bloxham — who stepped down at the end of the 2017-2018 academic year — in bringing the tenure-track faculty of the Sciences division to gender parity through a series of appointments that included the hiring of Statistics Professor Susan A. Murphy in 2017.

According to Singer, collaboration between Statistics faculty and senior Faculty of Arts and Sciences administrators, including former FAS Dean Michael D. Smith, was instrumental in reducing the department’s gender imbalance. Singer particularly noted the work of former Statistics Department Chair Neil Shephard in promoting diversity within the faculty population of the department. Singer said one effective mechanism adopted by Shephard was the extension of full-time equivalent appoint-

ments to faculty with tenured positions elsewhere at Harvard, which gave them voting rights and participation in the department. She named Lin and Statistics Professor Xiaole “Shirley” Liu, who both also serve as Biostatistics professors at then School of Public Health, as examples of recent full-time equivalent appointments.

“By extending our appointments to Professor Lin and Professor Liu, all of a sudden there were two tenured women in the department,” Singer said.

Singer noted that these “FTE” appointments enabled the Statistics Department to increase female faculty representation more quickly than recruiting and hiring from outside the university.

Lin cited support from FAS and University officials as a key factor to increase the number of female faculty members in the department. “From the leadership and to the faculty in the department, everybody feels that promoting diversity is one of the department’s higher priorities,” she said.

According to Lin, this “team effort” has resulted in an “intellectual environment that is stimulating, supportive, and nurturing.” She said the senior faculty care about the junior faculty and often discuss ways to help the junior faculty develop their careers.

Stubbs said there is still room for improvement, however. While he acknowledged that progress in reducing gender imbalances in traditionally male-dominated departments like Statistics has been “depressingly slow,” he said he is committed to addressing this challenge during his time as Interim Dean of Sciences.

“I think it’s incumbent on all of us to think hard about what more can we do,” he said.

“I’ll certainly do everything

that I can while I’m sitting in this chair to bring about that change.”

‘AN EMPHASIS IN TEACHING’

In addition to recruiting female faculty members, professors are also aiming to bridge the gender disparity among undergraduate concentrators through improving instruction quality. Singer attributed the effort’s origins to Statistics Professor and former Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Xiao-Li Meng, who chaired the department from 2004 to 2012. Meng’s ideas marked a “profound shift” and are part of how the department expanded so quickly, Singer said.

“When Meng was chair, he believed that the key to success in the department was to improve the quality of teaching in the department, to make taking courses and to make being a concentrator an attractive option. And if we made it an attractive option, we would also attract more women into the field,” Singer said. “So improving the climate and the attention to teaching in the department generally saw an increase in enrollment, an increase in concentrators, an emphasis in teaching.”

Both Stubbs and Lin pointed to burgeoning undergraduate interest in Statistics classes. Lin mentioned, in particular, Statistics Professor Joseph K. Blitzstein’s popular course Statistics 110: “Introduction to Probability,” which currently boasts 542 enrolled students.

“The Statistics Department is a remarkable department in that the number of students per year that take courses in statistics is around 2,500,” Stubbs said. “Of all the departments in our division, I believe it’s the case that Statistics carries the biggest instructional load per

faculty member of any department in our division.”

Stubbs added that the “growing appreciation of data science” and its interdisciplinary applications have caused what he called a “tsunami of demand” for statistics courses.

According to Singer, the faculty’s diverse research areas reflect the versatility of statistics for use in other fields. Many Statistics professors have joint appointments.

“There’s a very famous quote from a fellow named John Tukey, who was actually the unofficial PhD advisor of my advisor: ‘One of the fun things about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard,’” Singer said.

A ‘PRETTY SIGNIFICANT DISPARITY’

Several undergraduates in the department said that while they notice continued gender disparities, they are cognizant of the department’s ongoing efforts to address them.

Kelsang D. Donyo ’19, a Statistics concentrator, said the gender imabalance among Statistics faculty was particularly noticeable in upper-level courses, but paralleled trends in other STEM departments.

“When you go in the upper-level classes, like Stat 139 or Stat 149, it does tend to get more male-dominated,” she said.

“But at the same time you sort of expect that, sadly, as a student concentrating in Statistics, or taking those statistics courses, or math courses, or CS courses, and we just get trained to be used to that.”

Donyo said she believed the department could do more to promote diversity in concentration advising and mentorship, rather than relying on student-run advocacy groups such as Gender Inclusivity in Mathematics. “It would be nice to have

a female voice to kind of help you navigate certain job opportunities after graduation, in terms of more technical roles,” Donyo said. “It’s more like you as a Statistics concentrator have to speak out, maybe find a female mentor figure on your own, rather than that being provided for you.”

Tejal Patwardhan ’20, a Statistics concentrator and a teaching fellow for Stat 110, acknowledged the “pretty significant disparity” in the gender composition of faculty members and concentrators in the department. Still, she said she felt faculty members were “very aware” of this issue and working to address it. In particular, Patwardhan pointed to Blitzstein’s efforts to diversify the teaching staff of Stat 110 by hiring of more female teaching fellows. She said this was especially encouraging to potential female concentrators — given the course’s role as a concentration introduction — and guided her own path to Statistics.

“When I took the class and I saw a lot of women TFs who were very brilliant, that made me want to join,” Patwardhan said.

Similarly, Allison R. Paul ’20 said that the encouragement and support she received from professors was a significant factor in her decision to concentrate in Statistics.

“I started off wanting to do pure math, and in freshman year I got kind of turned off from it when I was taking [Math] 55,” Paul said. “At the same time, I was taking Stat 110, and Joe Blitzstein emailed me, saying ‘hey, you should really think about being a Stat concentrator!’ And I really appreciated that and have since really liked Stat.” amy.jia@thecrimson.com sanjana.narayanan@thecrimson.com

donations From Page 1

elections From Page 1

HKS Faculty Largely Donate to Democratic Campaigns

Everything to Know About the Midterm Elections Today

and causes in both the 2016 and 2018 election cycles, according to data gathered by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Nearly 92 percent of all political donations from HKS affiliates in 2016 and 2018 went to Democrats. Roughly 4.3 percent of the money donated went to Republicans while less than 1 percent to Independents. The rest of the contributions, about 3.6 percent. went to non-profits or nonpartisan groups.

This election cycle, though, saw a slight decrease in the amount of money faculty donated to both major parties. HKS faculty donated $84,030 to Democratic candidates and organizations in 2016, compared to the $79,670 it gave to Democrats in 2018. The trend held true for Republican candidates, too. School affiliates donated $1,700 less to Republican candidates and organizations in 2018 as compared to 2016.

The data — which the Center for Responsive Politics compiled at The Crimson’s request — accounted only for individuals who listed the Kennedy School as their employer at the time of their donation. The center took its information from publicly available Federal Election Commission filings.

Kennedy School affiliates’ preference for Democratic candidates fits the recent national trend in which Democrats are out-fundraising their Republican opponents. According to the Washington Post, Democratic candidates had raised more money than their Republican opponents in 53 of the 73 most competitive congressional races as of Oct. 2018.

The FEC data shows that HKS faculty contributed less frequently to individual candidates or political parties in the 2018 election cycle than they did in the 2016 cycle. This time around, Kennedy School professors instead gave more mon-

appears to be a bid to mobilize Republican voters.

ey to nonprofits and political action committees.

In 2016, 110 donations totaling more than $88,000 went to candidates or party funds. In 2018, 94 donations — $83,170 dollars in total — went to candidates or parties.

Roughly 24 donations in 2018 went to political action committees, compared to 2 in 2016. The 2018 election cycle also saw a $5,500 increase in the amount given to nonpartisan PACs or nonprofits.

Across both election cycles, most of the donations came from a relatively small group of HKS professors, researchers, and center associates. Twenty HKS affiliates contributed to political organizations or candidates in 2016, while 17 did the same in 2018.

Kennedy School professors’ liberal bent matches that of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s flagship faculty.

FAS professors have donated to Democrats by a wide margin since 2015, according to a Crimson analysis of FEC filings. A 2018 Crimson survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences later showed that 38.3 percent of respondents identify as “very liberal” and 44.9 percent identify as “liberal.”

Kennedy School Professor Emeritus Christopher S. Jencks, who donated $59,650 to Democrats and $500 to Independents between 2016 and 2018, said he gave “buckets of money” to the Democrats — but not because he “loves” the party. Jencks shelled out because he strongly disapproves of Republicans and President Donald Trump, he said in an interview.

“That’s not particularly atypical for people who are contributing to the Republican party or the Democratic party,” Jencks said. “They are responding to what Trump and to what the Republican party has become, a rubber stamp for

Trump.”

Ronald L. Heifetz, the co-founder of the HKS Center for Public Leadership, said the Kennedy School’s commitment to “truth” — which he said some fear Trump has imperiled — may have spurred donations to Democratic candidates.

“There is a deep commitment to finding out the truth,” Heifetz said. “The current politics that President Trump represents is a politics that’s capitalizing on the erosion of trust in the society that has gone on for decades.”

Richard E. Cavanaugh, an adjunct HKS lecturer in public policy, said he chose to donate to candidates whom he knows “personally.” Cavanaugh donated $3,000 to Democratic candidates between the 2016 and 2018 elections, according to FEC filings.

Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote in an emailed statement that HKS professors are allowed to participate in politics so long as they keep their beliefs separate from their research and teaching.

“The Kennedy School does not favor any political party or endorse political candidates,” Elmendorf wrote. “However, members of the Kennedy School community, including faculty, are free to participate in the political process and exercise their rights as citizens as long as they distinguish those personal activities from their activities at the School.”

Jencks said students in his classes “have no doubt” about his political leanings. But he added he “tried desperately hard not to impose them on other people.”

“I like the theology on the left a little better than theology on the right, but I keep trying to push my students,” Jencks said. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com

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WHERE TO VOTE Cambridge residents can cast their votes in the 2018 midterm elections on Tuesday from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. in one of 29 local polling places, including Quincy House, one of the 12 undergraduate residential Houses on Harvard’s campus.

Massachusetts voters can confirm their voter registration and polling location online. Anyone who is having trouble voting can contact the Cambridge Election Commission at 617-349-4361 (for Cambridge voters only) or the national Voter Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (for voters anywhere in the country).

Harvard Votes Challenge leaders at the Institute of Politics said some Harvard students incorrectly registered to vote with their campus mailing addresses instead of their residential dormitory addresses. If they show up as not registered when they check their status online and if they submitted these registration forms before the voter registration deadline, they will be permitted to correct their registration on Tuesday. Affected students can request a provisional ballot when they go to their polling location.

The IOP has compiled a chart of assigned polling locations for each Harvard undergraduate residential building.

KEY RACES U.S. Senate Wildly popular incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Warren is, per several polls, safely in the lead to maintain her seat in the U.S. Senate. After winning an unopposed primary, Warren faces Republican challenger Geoff Diehl in Tuesday’s general election. Diehl, who won the

endorsement from the Massachusetts Republican Party, is known primarily for his support of President Donald Trump; he was co-chair of Massachusetts’s effort to elect the current president. Currently, polls say male voters in Massachusetts are roughly split between the two candidates, while female voters overwhelmingly support Warren.

As in the primary, self-proclaimed “inventor of email” Shiva Ayyadurai is running as an independent candidate. His campaign has proven controversial for his tactics against Warren, whom he calls a “fake Indian.” Polls suggest Ayyadurai is unlikely to win.

Massachusetts Governor Ranked as America’s “most popular” governor, incumbent Governor Charles D. Baker ’79 is the favorite to win reelection.

Often called a moderate Republican, Baker has garnered a 74 percent approval rating in a traditionally blue state, the highest of any governor in the nation according to a poll conducted by WBUR radio station and a Massachusetts-based think tank.

Baker, who is running on a ticket with incumbent Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, will face Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez in the Tuesday election. Gonzalez previously served as the budget chief for former Mass. Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 and as CEO of healthcare company CeltiCare. Polls show Gonzalez trailing Baker by a significant margin. His campaign ruffled feathers with a controversial university endowment tax proposal which would cost Harvard over $500 million per year.

He defended the proposal in a recent op-ed for The Crimson.

Gonzalez has received the endorsement of former President Barack Obama. He will run on a ticket with Quentin A.

Palfrey ’96, who is the son of Adams House Faculty Deans John “Sean” G. Palfrey ’67 and Judith “Judy” S. Palfrey ’67.

Massachusetts Attorney General After running unopposed in the Sept. 4 primary, popular incumbent Attorney General Maura T. Healey ’92, a Democrat, will face Republican attorney James R. McMahon III on Tuesday.

Healey was first elected to office in 2014, and is expected to keep her position.

Massachusetts Secretary of State Following an unusually competitive primary election, Democratic incumbent Secretary of State William F. Galvin is seeking a ninth term in office. He will face Republican candidate and current head of security and chief investigator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Anthony M. Amore.

Local Congressional Races Massachusetts’s congressional delegation is currently made up entirely of Democrats running for re-election, with the exception of one retiring member.

After pulling a stunning primary upset against incumbent Democratic Rep. Michael E. Capuano, Ayanna S. Pressley is poised to win in Massachusetts’s 7th Congressional District, which includes parts of Harvard’s campus on the Boston side of the river.

Meanwhile, incumbent Democratic Rep. Katherine M. Clark will face Republican challenger John Hugo in Massachusetts’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Harvard’s main Cambridge campus.There are also three ballot questions on slate for Tuesday’s election. benjamin.frimodig@thecrimson.com iris.lewis@thecrimson.com meena.venkatarmanan@thecrimson.com

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | November 6, 2018

Page 10

Editorial The Crimson Editorial board

op-ed

Today, Elect to Vote

A Flirtation With Sex Week

T

oday marks the conclusion of a dramatic midterm election season that has roiled the country and this campus in innumerable ways.

The seeds of change sown today could affect this campus for years to come.

Therefore, there is only one thing to say to our eligible classmates: Go vote!

There are numerous reasons why voting is important, and we do not plan to reiterate them all here, but readers should remember that voting is both a power and a right. There is power in casting one’s ballot — especially in memory

There are numerous reasons why voting is important, and we do not plan to reiterate them all here, but readers should remember that voting is both a power and a right. of those who dedicated their lives over the centuries to secure this right. We also must remember our undocumented or international peers who cannot vote but whose lives may change as a result of this election.

Voters have perennial concerns that a specific candidate or issue may be uninteresting or unimportant. Yet every bal-

lot item has consequences. As citizens, we have an obligation to be informed about all issues on the ballot and vote for them, as just because an issue may not affect one personally does not mean it does not exist.

This is especially important if one is voting in Cambridge, our home for most of the year. Harvard is not Cambridge; the issues on the ballot have repercussions stretching beyond the Square. The nature of the ballot itself, with its binary “Yes” or “No” options on ballot questions, and the choice between parties’ nominees (with, admittedly, a writein option), can often belie the complex truth and debate behind initiatives and candidates. We must do our best to break beyond this and fully understand the stakes of our decisions.

We have appreciated the various initiatives our community has put together to encourage Harvard to vote; for instance, we reaffirm our appreciation of the Harvard-Yale Votes Challenge, now down to the wire (especially in the face of The Game next weekend). But these get-out-the-vote efforts may potentially reinforce the notion that voting is only important this election. This is not the case. Voting is always important, not just now or in two years, and eligible students should use this election as an opportunity to reinforce this good habit of voting for the rest of their lives.

Regardless of which party or ideology

is dominant in the country, voters must participate in every single election cycle. Today is not a one-off event. We hope that the Challenge and similar initiatives are mindful of this and do not end their work tomorrow, continuing through 2020 and beyond.

It is paramount that voters choose what they believe is the best decision, regardless of what the wider world may say.

The most we can ask of our peers and fellow citizens is to use the power of the critical thinking skills we develop here at Harvard to spend meaningful time considering the various issues on our ballots.

It is paramount that voters choose what they believe is the best decision, regardless of what the wider world may say.

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.

aridenne a. dews—Crimson photographer

Column

Do ... Less?

Grace M. Chao The UndERground

L

ook, I get it. Voting is important.

From the upcoming Harvard Undergraduate Council elections to the national midterms, hourly emails remind me that I’ve got to perform my civic duty. (Though, I’m not sure the Mather House get-out-the-vote zealots would be so eager to provide me free stamps to mail my Colorado ballot if they realized it might not necessarily be part of the alleged “blue wave.”) Inbox fatigue and jaded cynicism aside, I do believe casting a vote is a critical function of civilian civic duty.

In all kinds of election cycles, the creative energy and “do-something” impulses of ambitious office-seekers never cease to astound me, especially at the campus level. Gosh darn it, all of Harvard’s intrepid UC president and vice-presidential candidates have so

I am genuinely glad that there are students who want to lead and serve Harvard in this way, but I would pose the following question to these candidates: What would you take away? many things they want to do for students, and by golly there they’re the ones who will do them best. Another Crimson columnist has already written a delightful piece about the quixotic quest of indistinguishable UC candidate platforms, so I won’t subject them to additional satirical scrutiny.

I am genuinely glad that there are students who want to lead and serve Harvard in this way, but I would pose the

following question to these candidates: What would you take away? So many campus organizational efforts seem additive in nature, whether a resource to be created, a supportive administrative post to be established, or another initiative to be funded. Such efforts make for great slogans and hashtags, and no one wants to be the villain that doesn’t want more “resources” and “support” for anything even mildly relevant or important.

Yet, is it possible that there are programs or initiatives that can be struck?

This is not to say that student government, other student leaders, or University administrators shouldn’t pursue creative and innovative solutions to problems. But we need to think hard about our tendencies to generate constant institutional growth to solve problems.

If we think that improving the student condition can only be done by more programming, more training, more online modules, more administrative resources — just more in general — then we will only become more entrapped in increasingly unwieldy bureaucratic machinery.

We don’t have to look much further than our tuition bills to see part of the real cost of adding more cogs and wheels to the machine. Research from the American Institutes for Research estimates that the number of non-academic administrators and professional employees at American colleges has more than doubled over the past 25 years, far outpacing increases in student or faculty attendance. The College Board reports that tuition and fees have doubled or even tripled at public universities over roughly the same time period.

Now, as any good statistician or economist knows, correlation does not equal causation. But it is far from unlikely that no relationship exists between bureaucratic expansion and rising tuition.

While the forces driving that expansion certainly can’t be solely attributed to student efforts, demands for more resources, and simply more stuff, students play a non-negligible role in perpetuating a culture that is often ignorant of the realities of scarcity.

As a good friend remarked to me over dinner once, I also wonder if our striving for “more” can be destructive to fostering community. There are two possible arguments here: The generation of more

programming, initiatives, groups, etc. (while not intrinsically bad) has a dispersive effect on the student body, in the sense that students scatter to ever more niche and varied outlets for their interests and zeal. Again, that’s not intrinsically a bad thing, but it seems to me that the more we extend ourselves outward in such a way, the weaker our connections become to what anchors us to our larger community. Second, it is simply a fact of scarcity that all of our efforts necessarily compete with each other to some extent, which can foster discord and division.

But scarcity is far from salient at most

We will still inevitably be drawn to the promise of more, and to doing more ourselves at some cost.

American universities, especially at Harvard. It is easy for us to promise resources and funding for all kinds of initiatives and organizations because most of the time, we can actually get it all. The belief that we can have it all seems is woven deep into the Harvard psyche, as we fill up the Google calendar with endless blocks of class, extracurriculars, sports, job-seeking, and what not. However, every Harvard student knows intimately well the personal cost of this belief.

Perhaps it is because we as a student body and society are so stressed and burdened by the destructive scarcity of time that electoral promises of resources and initiatives and creative impulses become such sweet sounds to our ears, such attractive platforms for campaigns of all levels. As I cast my absentee midterm ballot and look towards the UC elections, I know that there likely won’t be many calls for any kind of resource prioritization, audit of spending, or meaningful consideration of ever-expanding administrative machinery. We will still inevitably be drawn to the promise of more, and to doing more ourselves at some cost.

What will it take to convince ourselves that sometimes, less is more?

—Grace M. Chao ’19 is an Economics concentrator in Mather House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.

By Liam M. Warner

A

ccording to a series of gauche emails lately appearing in my inbox, Sex Week began on Sunday. I have long thought the name of this carnival deceptive: If it meant that the student body was henceforth going to confine its illicit activities to a single week of the year, that would be a vast improvement over the present situation.

Alas, no. Instead it means that a few dozen Harvard affiliates will occasionally convene in Sever or Emerson to display their “sex positivity” under the tutelage of people with Ph.D.s in madeup subjects.

The whole program of Sex Week promotes the punctilious observance of methods and practices designed specifically to replace sex with grotesque approximations.

I confess that when I was a freshman my reaction to these emails was surprise at their shamelessness, but this year I am more prone to wondering whether Sex Week is the result of true nymphomania or merely lack of diverting reading material. Shock, as all radicals know, wears off quickly, so the desire épater le bourgeois urges them to bolder and bolder excesses until — what seems the next logical step — Harvard begins sponsoring a week of learning about how to have sex.

Or rather, learning about how not to have sex.

The whole program of Sex Week promotes the punctilious observance of methods and practices designed specifically to replace sex with grotesque approximations. Indeed the only inappropriate thing one could say at these events would be that sexual relations and childbearing are in any way connected.

After all, when somebody declares in grave tones that I need protection, my first thought is “From what?” The marital act does not strike me as a battle to be undertaken only when heavily armed. The sexual revolution has persuaded Americans that in sex they encounter a problem that can be solved only by the revolution’s own merchandise. It has invented an enemy in order to sell weapons. In most aspects of life, that is called fraud; in sex, it is called liberation.

The sexual revolution has persuaded Americans that in sex they encounter a problem that can be solved only by the revolution’s own merchandise.

The subject matter of the various events during these eight days ranges from the repulsive to the stupid. What, for instance, are we to make of “Like a Virgin: Exploring the Concept of Virginity”? The entire civilized world has had that concept down pat for several thousand years, and one doubts the reliability of a lecture based exclusively on second-hand sources. Most of the other events advertise little more than the fact that Sex Weekers and good puns exist in total estrangement.

I suppose amateurism is to be expected from amateurs, even the most devoted, so the orchestrators have enlisted the help of the professionals, Planned Parenthood and Good Vibrations.

As regards the first, we have another misleading name: One expects this to be a group of vocation counselors advising marriage for those who plan to be parents but are not aware of how that result is achieved. No again — it is a Margaret Sanger fan club that found forced sterilization an outdated barbarism and so adopted abortion as a more modern one.

The other organization, however, admits no double entendre. Since the Crass Menagerie took up residence on JFK St. (where it is, by present standards, only the second weirdest establishment, the Curious George store being the first), it has grown less and less interesting, capable now only of intruding impotently in undergraduate

One day soon, perhaps, we will have Purity Week, wherein the lascivious revolutionaries might be taught decency and virtue, or even T.M.I. Week, during which no events will be held. perversion and of being easily confused with the bong shop next door.

The assistance of both companies at this teenage onanist coagulation is, at any rate, amusing.

I had not thought that distributing electrified tchotchkes to college students would be a fulfilling career choice, but if it turned out that Sex Week was merely an elaborate charade to disguise a networking event for Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality concentrators facing unemployment, my eyebrows would remain level.

One day soon, perhaps, we will have Purity Week, wherein the lascivious revolutionaries might be taught decency and virtue, or even T.M.I. Week, during which no events will be held.

Meanwhile, we shall have to endure the sound of faraway ululations, which politeness will ascribe to World Series euphoria.

—Liam M. Warner ’20, an inactive Crimson Editorial editor, is a Classics concentrator in Adams House.

Page 11

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | november 6, 2018

European Summit Discusses Populism, Authoritarianism

By Rebecca S. Araten contributing Writer

Panelists discussed the future of democracy in Europe at a Center for European Studies summit Monday.

The annual event, entitled “Summit on the Future of Europe,” provides a forum for scholars and public leaders to discuss the condition of Europe and its people.

Migration, rising populism, and other topics were debated throughout the day-long conference.

In the second panel of the day, speakers diagnosed a rising tide of authoritarianism as challenging democratic ideals.

“Today, the values that make up the European Union are in danger of being replaced by an emphasis on identity,” Ayse Kadioglu, CES visiting scholar and chair of the panel, said.

CES Director Grzegorz Ekiert discussed the declining quality of Poland’s and Hungary’s democratic institutions.

“For the first time in the history of European Union, we have two countries [Hungary and Poland], two member states, which are formally charged with assault under rule of law, and we have two countries which breached the fun-

damental European values,” he said.

He specifically referenced a photograph of Polish governing officials next to the fascist flag and the rise of anti-semitism and nationalism in Hungary as evidence of this trend.

Other panelists sought to describe the sources of these sentiments.

“The main problem of the European Union right now is migration. Rule of law, values, justice, they matter but not like migration,” said panelist Monica Macovei, a member of the European Parliament from Romania.

Macovei characterized some of the responses to the European Union’s controverial package deal for immigration — which required EU members to allow a certain number of immigrants into their countries — as xenophobic.

“The cause of this is populism and nationalism, which are the tools of extremism,” she said.

Some panelists also drew parallels between the political climate in Europe and in the United States.

“I sit before you as a transatlantic phenomenon,” said John Shattuck, a professor of diplomacy at Tufts University. Shat-

tuck mentioned the connections between President Trump and other populistic leaders, such as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.

“Trump, as you know, reached out to Orbán, and Orbán was one of the first people to congratulate him on his election,” Shattuck said.

“Trump is, in some ways, following the Orbán playbook in the way he is operating in the United States.”

Panelist Karen Donfried, a senior fellow at CES, said politics overseas are very relevant to people living in the United States, including students.

“I think there’s a critical role for students in your generation to play in this,” she said. “Because it’s not just the policymakers and the heads of state of government that effect these political trends — it’s citizens, and each of us has agency in this.”

Robert Rosenberg, a policy advisor who attended the conference, said the forum was a necessary step towards change.

“The talks and discussions were very important for the future of the global countries,” he said.

“Discussing these issues is where you start to formulate the solutions.”

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Sports

Women’s Soccer

Final Record Overall 7-7-1 ___________________________________________________________

lEADING sCORER

mOHAMMADI, 7 ___________________________________________________________

Season Recap

Final REcord Conference 4-2-1 ___________________________________________________________

aSSISTS lEADER AGNEW, 4 ___________________________________________________________

Conference Standing T-3RD ___________________________________________________________

gOALKEEPER pERFORMANCE eTZEL, 0.99 gaa ___________________________________________________________

gOALS pER gAME 1.27 g/g ___________________________________________________________

gOALS BY fRESHMAN 4 pLAYERS, 9 ___________________________________________________________

WOMen’s Soccer

Harvard Sends Off Seniors with One Final Victory

By Bryan Hu and George Hu Crimson Staff WriterS

As the Harvard women’s soccer team prepared to kick off against Columbia in its final game of the season, every single outfield player in the graduating class had scored a goal in their collegiate careers—with the exception of one.

Last Saturday at Jordan Field, senior forward Alli Wiggins changed that, powering her side to an early lead with her first career goal in her final collegiate game.

A stray ball in the 11th minute gave Wiggins the opportunity to put herself on the board.

The Methuen, Mass., native collected the ball on the right side of the box and fired a low shot past Lions senior goalkeeper Sophie Whitehouse off a deflection, giving the home team an early 1-0 advantage.

“The ball was bouncing around the box, and fortunately landed right at my feet,” Wiggins said. “I knew I had a pretty good shot, and took it. It was great to put the team ahead in a game that meant so much to us.”

On Senior Day, the Crimson took that spark and overcame the Lions, 2-1.

All four Harvard senior field players—star midfielder and co-captain Leah Mohammadi, fellow co-captain Zayne Matulis, defensive midfielder Niki Young, and Wiggins—along with goalkeeper Danielle Etzel, were honored in a ceremony before kick-off.

“They’re just great people,” said head coach Chris Hamblin, having just finished his third year at the helm of the team.

“They always put the team first.

They’re always going to give

their hearts every single day.

They’re moving on to their next phase in life, but they’ve really given us so much, and hopefully they’ve taken a real positive out of their time here.”

Together, the senior class has seen its fair share of highs and lows, having won the Ivy League title and earned a bid to the NCAA tournament in 2016, but also having finished in the bottom half of the conference table in 2017. The graduating class of 2019, however, was able to end its time in Cambridge on a high note, capping a 7-7-1 roller-coaster 2018 regular season with a win.

The new-look Harvard squad got off to a 2-4 start in 2018, showing flashes of gelling but more so inconsistency, before busting out a huge 2-0 win over Northeastern in mid-September and setting the stage for a midseason renaissance.

The Crimson then got off to a roaring start in conference play, starting 3-0-1 and pushing its overall record to 6-5-1 before cooling off in late October. The squad proceeded to settle for a .500 overall record and a 4-2-1 Ivy mark, good enough for a tie with Dartmouth for third in the Ancient Eight. The Lions (8-7-1, 1-4-3) finished fifth.

On a windy Saturday afternoon, Harvard certainly came up clutch in the final game of the season. After Columbia tied the score in the 17th minute, the two sides went back and forth until a golden opportunity opened up on the counterattack for the Crimson.

Fed by an adept interception and clearing pass by junior midfielder Meg Tveit in the 79th minute, Mohammadi sprinted half the field with the wind at her back, finding sophomore

forward Murphy Agnew with a through pass to the left side.

Agnew buried the shot for her second goal of the season and first game-winner, as the score proved decisive in giving Harvard a 2-1 lead.

“I just saw the goalie was off her line, and if I had taken another touch, she would have been there, so I just took one touch,” Agnew said. “It hit the back of the net...it’s so exciting because I really wanted to win this game.”

With heavy gusts of wind in the face of the Columbia attack, the Crimson defense was able to prevent any realistic scoring opportunity by the Lions in the closing minutes.

Columbia ended up outshooting Harvard 10-9, though both sides made three saves.

The Crimson committed 11 fouls to the Lion’s four.

Lions freshman midfielder Jessica Schildkraut scored the first-half tying goal off of a rebound off the crossbar for her third goal of the season to make it 1-1. Fighting the wind, Columbia couldn’t fend off Harvard in the second half.

As the final horn sounded, so too did the curtain come down on the season.

Mohammadi led Harvard this season with 17 points on seven goals and three assists, while underclassmen Hirst, Agnew, and freshman Taylor Nielsen combined for eight goals and nine assists.

For all the uncertainty that surrounds incoming rookies, the platoon of freshmen produced fantastically for the Crimson, as nine of the team’s 19 goals were scored by firstyears. The rookies were also instrumental in joining veteran defenders like Tveit on the

FULL SPEED AHEAD Captain and midfielder Leah Mohammadi finished the season with a team-high seven goals, marking the second straight season in which she was the Crimson’s leading scorer. Mohammadi did so while tallying 42 shots and tacking on three assists, giving her 17 total points. Henry Zhu—Crimson photographer

backline, providing security for Etzel in goal.

Freshmen Trinity Thomas, Jillian Wachira, Jordan Di Verniero, and Lara Schenk, in addition to Nielsen and Hirst, all had their moments in significant playing time.

Etzel, closing a season with a career-best five individual shutouts over 1000 minutes played, got the win to move to 7-5-1. Etzel posted a career 0.99 goalsagainst average and made 119

career saves.

Harvard, picked to finish fifth in preseason predictions, performed better than the polls expected, but were perhaps inconsistent all season long. Though its mainstays are graduating, Harvard’s core of returning talent is formidable enough to become a consistent force in 2019 and beyond.

On Saturday, Mohammadi said she “just knew” Agnew would bury the game-winning

shot in her post-game interview. Her words of confidence were not just in regards to onfield performances—the team’s leader has confidence in what the squad can do moving forward.

“They’re going to have a strong foundation to build on for the future,” Mohammadi said. bryan.hu@thecrimson.com george.hu@thecrimson.com

Men’s Basketball

Season Tips Off as Harvard Hosts MIT Tuesday Night

LOCKED IN Sophomore guard Rio Haskett prepares to release a free throw as junior guard Justin Bassey looks on from the perimeter. Both Haskett and Bassey figure to see significant playing time despite a crowded backcourt heading into the season opener. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—Crimson photographer

By Henry Zhu Crimson Staff Writer

The 237-day offseason for Harvard men’s basketball is finally over.

On Tuesday night, Lavietes Pavilion will open its doors to crosstown rivals MIT as Harvard suits up for its first competitive game since bowing out of the NIT eight months ago.

Nov. 6 also marks the 127th day in office for recently-elected Harvard President Larry Bacow, who is expected to be in attendance in a clash of his two alma maters. Bacow earned his undergraduate economics degree from MIT before making ­

the move across town and receiving a M.P.P., J.D. and Ph.D. at Harvard.

When asked where Bacow’s loyalties will line up, Coach Tommy Amaker wittingly expressed confidence that his heart would be with the Crimson.

“We will find out, but I do think we will have his allegiance,” Amaker proclaimed.

“But he’s coming, he’s excited... with Harvard Athletics but obviously this game has special meaning in different ways for him.”

Beyond this eminent appearance, the focus now shifts to the play on the court. Count-

ed as an exhibition in past seasons, this year’s encounter with the Engineers is a legitimate contest for both teams.

Harvard is facing an MIT team that is currently ranked fifth in Division III basketball, straight off its second consecutive NEWMAC championship in 2017-18. Coach Larry Anderson guided the Engineers to a 25-6 overall mark in his 23rd season at the helm, ultimately concluding in the Elite Eight of the DIII Tournament.

“We are going into it to see where we are and to certainly play the players and lineups that have earned opportunities to be out there,” Amaker said.

“I am not going into it thinking of ‘X’ amount of minutes, as we would in an exhibition or in closed scrimmages…. We are hopeful that we are going to be ready with the bodies and personnel we have.”

The reference to overall team health is particularly salient at the dawn of the campaign, as two of Amaker’s expected starters, juniors Bryce Aiken and Seth Towns, are still recovering from offseason knee surgeries. At the Nov. 2 preseason press conference, Amaker stated he is still awaiting news from medical staff and that both Aiken and Towns would be “out indefinitely.”

In their stead, junior forward Chris Lewis will likely retain his role as the centerpiece in Amaker’s “inside-out” offense. The 2017-18 All-Ivy first team awardee averaged 12.8 points per game last season and tallied a conference-best 60.1 field goal conversion percentage. Lewis also led the Crimson in overall player efficiency and win shares, with a PER of 24.2 and WS of 3.8.

The Alpharetta, Ga., native has continued to improve his physique and looks to embrace an even larger role for Harvard this season.

“For mine, it’d be conditioning and rebounding,” Lewis said. “That’s something that me and the coaches have talked about. We think I can be more effective if I work on that, both defensively and offensively. For about the last month, I went vegetarian, multiple professional athletes have done it to get better performance. I feel a lot more energy, my body feels a lot better.”

Surrounding Lewis will be other familiar faces in the junior class, who consisted of 76 percent of total Crimson scoring in the 2017-2018 campaign.

Point guard Christian Juzang will no longer need to play all 40 minutes of the game with bench reinforcements from four-star freshman Spencer Freedman and healthy senior guard Tommy McCarthy. Defensive stalwart Justin Bassey, an 8.0 PPG and 2.8 DBPM (defensive box plus/minus) contributor, will be complemented by freshman Noah Kirkwood, sophomore Rio Haskett and senior Corey Johnson at the wings.

Amaker also noted a significant improvement in sophomore forward Danilo Djuricic’s game this offseason, who will play a versatile role as a stretch big in the rotation.

“Danilo has really been one of our front-court players thus far in practice,” Amaker said.

Johnson, alongside class-

mate Weisner Perez, has taken over the captain’s role this year from Chris Egi ’18. The fellow Canadian also noted an emphasis on diversifying his game from his traditional spotout shooting role, which in his three seasons at Cambridge has netted him 189 total treys at an .381 clip.

“As a captain, I need to take that leadership role to the next level,” Johnson stated. “From a game perspective, being able to create off the dribble, not just being a shooter. Defensively, be aggressive.”

On the opposing side, Harvard challenges a squad that it eclipsed by a single-digit margin in last year’s opener. The Engineers’ high scorer in the 73-64 Crimson victory, then-junior Bradley Jomard, was tabbed as a preseason DIII third team All-American after averaging a team-leading 15.5 PPG in 16 double-digit scoring performances.

Jomard will be accompanied by captain AJ Jurko, who finished his season with a 14.2 PPG and 4.7 RPG tally. The NEWMAC Tournament Most Outstanding Player has a good eye in terms of ball distribution, landing him a conference-high 158 assists last season and is a danger from deep, with a teamhigh 45.8 percent clip.

Coming off the bench against the Crimson, then-freshman wing Hamilton Forsythe also gave the hosts problems on defense with 13 points. The NEWMAC Rookie of the Year logged a 0.523 field goal percentage, 0.447 three-point percentage, and holds a career-high of 29 points.

With dangerous perimeter weapons, MIT will be a sure-fire test for a short-handed Crimson roster. Outside of Lewis, complementary pieces will determine whether Harvard can turn the page of the first night unscathed. henry.zhu@thecrimson.com