THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
| VOLUME CL, NO. 10 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
ED SCHOOL
FAS DEAN SEARCH
OPINION
ARTS
To the T: Tee Up. Boston Residents Deserve Better
Artist Profile: Rapper Mickey Diamond
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FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2023
Dean Long Raises Diversity Concerns CAMPUS DIVERSITY. Harvard School of Education Dean Bridget Terry Long mantained in a Tuesday interview that economic affirmative action cannot replace racial diversity of students. SEE PAGE 4
COLLEGE
Harvard Affiliates Rally for Gun Control GUN REFORM. On Tuesday evening, more than 100 Harvard affiliates, Boston residents, and gun control activists gathered on the steps of Widener Library, calling for stricter gun regulations. SEE PAGE 8
The Most Powerful Dean FAS DEAN. Now President-elect of Harvard, Claudine Gay is preparing to step out of University Hall and into Massachusetts Hall. One of her most important tasks is to fill her own shoes — dean of Harvard’s largest academic school. Past candidates for the role have typically possessed strong administrative experience and familiarity with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. SEE PAGE 6 SAMI E. TURNER—CRIMSON DESIGNER, MARIA M. ROSS—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
HUPD
Harvard Police Chief Makes First Public Statement on ‘Swatting’ Attack BY RYAN H. DOAN-NGUYEN AND YUSUF S. MIAN
STATE POLITICS
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
H Proposed Mass. Bill to End Legacy Admissions ADMISSIONS. The Massachusetts House is considering a proposed bill that seeks to end admissions preference for legacies and those related to donors. It also looks to end early decision programs. SEE PAGE 11
arvard University Police Department Chief Victor A. Clay provided new details on the Monday armed raid by HUPD of an undergraduate suite in response to a false 911 call, writing in a Wednesday statement that the caller claimed to be a Harvard student who was “kicked out.” The statement comes more than 48 hours after at least five armed HUPD officers raided the Leverett House suite of Harvard College seniors Jarah K. Cotton ’23, Jazmin N. Dunlap ’23, David G. Madzivanyika ’23, and Alexandra C. René ’23. The students, who are Black, awoke to
COMAROFF LAWSUIT
AND ELIAS J. SCHSIGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
SPORTS
HOCKEY. Several Harvard Men’s Ice Hockey alumni have emerged as powerhouses in the National Hockey League, including Crimson stars Adam Fox, Ryan Donato, Alex Killorn, Jimmy Vesey, and others. SEE PAGE 16
armed” in the third call, Clay wrote in the statement, and first threatened to “shoot law enforcement who entered the room” and then to leave the room and “start shooting as he did so.” These phone calls led HUPD to believe there was an “elevated” threat. HUPD called Cotton and René roughly 30 minutes before the raid, Cotton said in an interview Monday. When officers failed to contact the two students, HUPD “determined that it was necessary to enter the room” to ensure their safety, according to Clay. The officers then searched the Leverett suite with “negative results for an individual with a firearm or any persons acting in a suspicious manner,” according to HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano. After the situation was cleared, officers brought the students to a common room
and briefed them on the reasons for their response, Clay wrote in the statement. At around 4:41 a.m., residential staff “began to engage with the students directly.” The false 911 call was an instance of “swatting,” named for the armed SWAT teams that often respond to them. Swatting attacks have been on the rise, particularly in schools, across the country in recent weeks. NBC10 Boston reported that 28 Massachusetts communities received swatting calls the day following a March 27 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. In a Wednesday statement, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana wrote that other Boston-area universities had been targeted by similar swatting calls in the past week. MIT received a bomb threat
SEE PAGE 8
HARVARD ADMISSIONS
Comaroff Lawsuit Will Class of 2027 Celebrates Proceed to Discovery Acceptances to College BY RAHEM D. HAMID
Former Harvard Stars in NHL
banging on their door and commands to “open up” at approximately 4:15 a.m. Monday. Officers wielding assault rifles and wearing riot gear identified themselves and entered the suite before ordering the students out of their rooms at gunpoint. Clay wrote in the Wednesday statement that HUPD received three calls within an hour from a caller who “identified himself as male” and claimed to be a Harvard student who was “kicked out” this semester. The caller claimed to have taken a woman hostage in the students’ suite and had unsuccessfully attempted to kill her, according to Clay. The caller referenced “a room number that indicated a strong familiarity with Leverett House and how its rooms are commonly referenced by Harvard community members,” Clay wrote. The caller “indicated that he was
A federal judge on Monday allowed a majority of the counts in a lawsuit filed last year against Harvard alleging that the University ignored sexual harassment and retaliation complaints against professor John L. Comaroff to proceed while dismissing one count. In an 81-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Judith G. Dein wrote that the May 2020 Crimson investigation into allegations against Comaroff and two other senior Anthropology professors, as well as subsequent reporting by The Chronicle of Higher Education, “support a finding that Harvard engaged in a long-term pattern and practice of indifference to complaints of sexual harassment against professors in that Department.” Dein denied most of Harvard’s motion to dismiss nine of 10 counts of the lawsuit.
She dismissed count three, writing that “plaintiffs have failed to allege plausible claims against Harvard for gender discrimination under Title IX.” Last week, Dein denied Harvard’s motion for summary judgment on the 10th count, which alleges Harvard violated Kilburn’s privacy by obtaining and distributing her private therapy notes as part of an internal investigation. In her ruling, Dein wrote Harvard’s arguments were “unpersuasive” and that the “facts are sufficient” to support Kilburn’s claim that the University illegally breached its fiduciary duty. A total of nine counts of the lawsuit will proceed to discovery. The plaintiffs — Anthropology graduate students Margaret G. Czerwienski, Lilia M. Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava — first sued Harvard in February 2022, claiming that Harvard was aware of complaints about Comaroff’s alleged misconduct as a faculty member at the University
SEE PAGE 4
BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND EMMA H. HAIDER CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
laire S. Yoo, a senior at Idaho Falls High C School, said she was so nervous waiting for the results of her regular decision application to Harvard College that she took an “hour-long shower.” She was “shaking” as she navigated to the applicant portal. “I clicked it — and the confetti went everywhere,” said Yoo, who started screaming as her mom ran into the room. “We all came downstairs and started jumping around,” Yoo added. “It was the best day of my life. Like, genuinely.” Yoo is one of 1,220 applicants to the College who opened their admissions portals on March 31 to confetti and the word “Congratulations!” — an official welcome to the Class of 2027. Students accepted during regular decision join 722 admits from the early action
cycle, who learned of their acceptances in December. The 1,942 admitted students were selected from a total applicant pool of 56,937. The College admitted 3.41 percent of applicants, marking a slight increase from last year’s 3.19 percent and the second-lowest acceptance rate in the College’s history. Dev S. Ahuja, a member of the incoming class from Cleveland, Ohio, described Harvard as his “dream school” but said he was deferred after applying early action to the College. On Ivy Day — when all eight Ivy League schools release admissions results — he planned to open up decisions in alphabetical order, with his parents and grandmother in the room and sister on FaceTime. Still, he decided to save Harvard for last. “Then I just saw the status update,” Ahuja said. “I took a deep breath. And
SEE PAGE 5