THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLV NO. 28 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2018
The Harvard Crimson Admissions officers should not penalize students who participate in gun control protests. EDITORIAL PAGE 10
Men’s squash falls 3-6 to Trinity in the National Championships. SPORTS PAGE 11
Students Criticize Parkland Response
SEAS Student Groups Expand
By DELANO R. FRANKLIN and SAMUEL W. ZWICKEL
By LUKE W. XU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A s the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences plans a long-awaited move to its new Allston campus, it’s contending at home with a different kind of change: an increasingly diverse student body that requires new infrastructure and support. In the past year alone, SEAS has helped three affinity groups, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), establish chapters at Harvard. The move is part of a larger array of initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion at SEAS including surveys that collect data on minority student experiences, coffee chats with professors, and matching prospective freshman from underrepresented backgrounds with faculty advisors.
Some students, faculty, and alumni are criticizing the Harvard College admissions office for its public response to concerns applicants will be penalized for participating in protests related to the recent shooting in Parkland, Fla. On Feb. 14, a gunman killed 17 people in a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland. In the aftermath of the massacre, high school students across the nation coordinated walk-outs to speak out against gun violence—stirring up fears that universities may disadvantage demonstrators when making admissions decisions. After high schools in Texas and Washington threatened to punish students for joining demonstrations, more than 150 schools across the country—including Yale and MIT—
SEE PARKLAND PAGE 9
UC Proposes, Approves Multicultural Center By JONAH S. BERGER and RUTH A. HAILU CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Undergraduate Council approved a proposal of action for a multicultural center on campus at its Sunday meeting, sending the plan to the desk of Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana. The proposal calls for administrators to organize a group of paid staff, College faculty, and undergraduates to research the history of minority communities at Harvard, and to examine multicultural centers at other universities. The research would then be given to a separate body, tasked with deducing whether a physical space would be the most suitable course of action for the College. Finally, if the space is deemed necessary, a task force would be organized to formulate the specifics of what the center would look like, according to the UC’s plan. The proposal comes as a result of a November UC referendum, which asked students whether the College should establish a “physical space for students” to “promote diversity, belonging, and inclusion on campus.” Because the referendum passed—with
SEE PAGE 8
1,402 of 2,074 undergraduate voters supporting it—the Council was required to draft and present a policy proposal to administrators. Khurana’s endorsement is needed to move forward with the efforts to establish the center, which has long been a dream for some Harvard students. In addition to student support for the center, a September draft report from the University-wide task force for diversity and inclusion recommended the creation of centers for “Identity, Politics, and Culture” as well as “Inclusion and Belonging.” Leverett House representative Salma Abdelrahman ’20, who co-leads the Multicultural Center Coalition— the group spearheading efforts to establish a physical space on campus— said in an interview Monday that the proposal was a culmination of months of discussion. “It’s been a very long process of meetings with student groups, administrators, student cultural [organizations], interns with the [Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations], and other offices on campus,” Abdelrahman said.
SEE UC PAGE 9
FORMER SPIES
Sir R. John Sawers (left), former Chief of MI6, Ashton B. Carter (center), former US Secretary of Defense, and Professor R. Nicholas Burns discuss national security. LU SHAO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Workers Discuss TPS Effect on Unions
Koch Donations Spur Controversy at HKS By ALEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A round fifty students, employees, and activists congregated in Emerson Hall Monday afternoon to hear a panel of three Harvard workers discuss the impact changes to Temporary Protected Status will have on individual workers and union power. TPS is a program started by Congress in 1990 to offer temporary humanitarian relief in the United States to individuals whose home countries are affected by armed conflict and natural disasters. The Trump administration has recently scaled back TPS protections for immigrants from a number of countries,including El Salvador, Sudan, Haiti and Nicaragua.
SEE TPS PAGE 9
Harvard Today 2
News 7
A foundation overseen by controversial libertarian billionaire Charles Koch has made several millions-dollar donations to the Harvard Kennedy School in recent years, prompting some debate within the school about the organization’s role and influence on campus. In Dec. 2015, the Koch Foundation donated $2.9 million to the Kennedy School’s Taubman Center to support an initiative meant to boost education-related entrepreneurship. And in Nov. 2017, the Koch Foundation gave the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs a $1.8 million grant to launch “The Project on Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft,” a collaborative international studies program between the Kennedy School and MIT. These grants follow about $10 million given to other institutions of higher education including Tufts University and the University of California at San Diego—both meant to foster research into foreign policy.
By EDITH M. HERWITZ and MOLLY C. MCCAFFERTY
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
SEE SEAS PAGE 7
DIANA C. PEREZ—CRIMSON DESIGNER
THE BLOCK
Sophomore forward Jeannie Boehm blocks a Penn player’s shot during Friday night’s game in the Ivy League Basketball Championship Tournament. KATHRYN S. KUHAR—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Editorial 10
Sports 11
TODAY’S FORECAST
SUNNY High: 52 Low: 39
Given these recent donations, some Kennedy School students and outside observers have raised concerns about the clout they say the Koch foundation may wield at the school. “They have a very clear libertarian, ideological, free-market fundamentalism agenda that they are pushing not only in the United States but also across the world,” Kennedy School student Jeff Rousset said. “When the dean says he is interested in bringing more conservatives voices to the Kennedy School, we have to ask, what are the voices in his head influencing those decisions?” Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf recently said he is interested in bringing more conservative voices to campus. Kennedy School spokesperson Doug Gavel wrote in an emailed statement Monday that the school does not follow rules established by donors. “We accept funding from external sources, but those sources do not dictate or unduly influence the results of
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SEE KOCH PAGE 9
cheese this time