The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
|
VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 23 |
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
| THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2022
EDITORIAL PAGE 4
NEWS PAGE 5
SPORTS PAGE 6
When it comes to Title IX, Harvard must be proactive not reactive
Students launch new Buddhist group at Harvard
Women’s tennis suffers back-to-back defeats in Illinois
HMC’s Net-Zero Pledge, Explained Cambridge to Lift Mask Mandate Types of By ERIC YAN and DEKYI T. TSOTSONG
Scope 3 1 Scope
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Greenhouse Gas Emissions*
By KATERINA V. CORR
direct emissions from indirect emissions from company activities all other sources
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
operational vehicles, furnaces business travel, waste disposal
Scope Scope112 indirect emissions from purchased energy
3 Emissions ope Sc pe 2 Emissi Sco on s Scope 1 Em
electricity, heating, cooling operational vehicles, furnaces
Scope 1
ions iss
On Sept. 9, 2021, Harvard announced it would allow its remaining holdings tied to the fossil fuel industry to expire, effectively divesting its endowment from the sector. The announcement came after a decade of student activism, protests, and even legal complaints and marked a reversal in the stance of University President Lawrence S. Bacow and other administrators, who had long rejected calls for divestment. Over a year earlier, the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — directed Harvard Management Company, which oversees the endowment, to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Since then, HMC has released annual climate reports detailing its progress toward the target. In its latest report, HMC announced its internal operations
direct emissions from company activities operational facilities or vehicles
*According to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
SEE HMC PAGE 3
CAMILLE G. CALDERA—CRIMSON DESIGNER
ambridge will lift its indoor C mask mandate on March 14, the city announced Wednesday. The mask mandate — which applies to restaurants, places of worship, performance venues, and other places “open to members of the public” — originally took effect in September 2021. In an effort to combat the fast-spreading Omicron variant, the mandate was strengthened in January to include common areas in some residential buildings. An amended emergency order released Wednesday by Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale and Public Health Commissioner Assaad J. Sayah extended the most recent version of the indoor mask mandate — previously set to expire on Feb. 27 — to March 13 at 11:59 p.m. The announcement comes as Covid-19 cases are declining rapidly in the greater Boston
area. “Cambridge has seen a steady decrease in reported cases, test positivity, and COVID-19 virus detection in the City’s municipal wastewater monitoring program,” the city’s announcement said. “According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 92 percent of residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 76 percent of residents are fully vaccinated, and 45 percent have received a booster dose,” the announcement continued. After the mandate is lifted, businesses may continue to require that patrons wear masks inside their establishment, the announcement said. Mask requirements for visitors and employees inside municipal buildings will continue through March 27. Cambridge Public Schools has not yet announced any changes to its mask mandate,
SEE MASKS PAGE 5
Citizens’ Assembly Faces Questions From UC Members By MERT GEYIKTEPE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
he Citizens’ Assembly — an T unelected body tasked with drafting a new constitution for Harvard College’s student government — is facing questions over its structure. The body is the brainchild of Undergraduate Council President Michael Y. Cheng ’22, who was elected on a pledge to defund the UC and rewrite its constitution. The Citizens’ Assembly is composed of 30 randomly-selected students, five of whom are in the UC. The body’s meetings are not open to the public. Some general UC members have raised questions over the body’s structure. In an interview earlier this month, Dunster Representative Samuel H. Taylor ’24 said there has been minimal communication with general members about the Citizens’ Assembly’s
process. “I can’t really say an awful lot about the constitutional convention, because I never really know what’s going on inside it, and no one does,” Taylor said. “I don’t think the solution is to shut the doors and have 30 people who are quote, unquote ‘randomly selected’ to discuss this without any participation whatsoever from the UC institution.” At Tuesday’s UC meeting, Lowell House Representative LyLena D. Estabine ’24, a Citizens’ Assembly member, updated general UC members on the body’s progress. UC representatives questioned the assembly’s decision to close its meetings to the public, its level of communication with the general body, and its representativeness. Cheng said in an interview the private process is intended to facilitate open conversation. “There’s a level of trust that they can make arguments, say-
ing things that might not initially seem popular,” he said. “You kind of need a blank slate. You don’t need a bunch of UC people staring people down, intimidating members of the student body.” The Citizens’ Assembly plans to publicize its first draft at its next meeting, per Cheng. At Tuesday’s meeting, Estabine said the body “could definitely consider” opening its meetings to the public in the future. The 30 Citizens’ Assembly members were randomly selected from a lottery, using a sorting algorithm in consultation with Ariel D. Procaccia, a computer science professor at Harvard, according to Cheng. Though 30 members were selected, the body has suffered from a drop in attendance. According to Cheng, 22 members attended the body’s first meeting, but attendance has fallen
SEE UC PAGE 5
Lowell House Representative LyLena D. Estabine ’24 answers questions about the Citizens’ Assembly at an meeting of the Undergraduate Council on Tuesday. J. SELLERS HILL—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Former Colombian President Speaks at IOP Transfer Students Talk About Experiences
By MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos welcomed his country’s recent move to decriminalize abortion in his first public remarks since the ruling at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum on Wednesday. Colombia’s Constitutional Court released a historic decision on Monday that decriminalized abortions during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, following in the footsteps of Mexico and Argentina. Previously, abortion was only allowed in Colombia under very specific circumstances, and receiving an illegal abortion was punishable by several years in prison. Santos called the court’s ruling “very controversial,” but said he supported the move. “I agree with what the Constitutional Court did in Colombia, expanding the weeks where abortion is allowed,” Santos said. “I think it was a correct move, and I support it.” “If you ask me, I think they did the right thing,” he added. In an interview before the event, Santos declined to
By RAHEM D. HAMID and NIA L. ORAKWUE
SEE SANTOS PAGE 5 INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Harvard Today 2
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos discussed democratic structural change and climate change with HKS Assistant Professor Yanilda María González. MILES J. HERSZENHORN—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
News 3
Editorial 4
Sports 6
TODAY’S FORECAST
With Harvard College’s March 1 transfer deadline rapidly approaching, current Harvard students who transferred to Harvard over the past few years are looking back on their own application experiences. Harvard only accepts around 12 transfer students each year, according to the Harvard College admissions website, which notes that the admissions committee looks for three main things in transfer applicants: a “clearly defined academic need” for transferring, a strong academic record at the applicant’s current school, and strong faculty recommendations. Although the College’s standard admissions cycle had a 3.4 percent acceptance rate for the class of 2025, the transfer student acceptance rate has in the past hovered around 1 percent — in 2012, for instance, the College accepted 15 transfer students from an applicant pool of 1,448 applicants, according to a Crimson published that summer.
RAINY High: 33 Low: 27
Samuel K. Meyerson ’22 said he did not find the Harvard transfer admissions process to be much different than the applications of other schools. “I think that the transfer admissions process is basically the same thing as the initial college process,” Meyerson said, “with a few more essays, and you get college professors to write the recs instead of high school teachers.” Anna C. Clark ’23, who began her sophomore year at Harvard remotely after transferring, said she believed the emphasis in the transfer process is more academic than holistic. “In high school, they always told me, ‘they want to know who you are as a person,’” she said. “Whereas when I was applying to transfer, I had much more of the impression that they wanted to know who you were as a student, rather than as a person.” Meyerson, who transferred from Williams College in 2019, said he decided to transfer because he was interested in more “niche” subjects for which a
SEE TRANSFER PAGE 3
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