The Harvard Crimson - Volume CL, No. 31

THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

| VOLUME CL, NO. 31

DSO

HEARING

| CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY

ARTS

‘Under Control/Utter Harvard Limps Into Chaos’ Review: ‘Wait, Break With Shutout Is This Play About Us?’ Losses PAGE 13

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2023

Dean Dunne Discusses $200 Student Activities Fee BUDGET CUTS. Dean of Students Thomas Dunne said the office is looking to examine the history and purpose of the Student Activities Fee as an increasing number of students opt out of the annual cost.

SEE PAGE 5

Gay Testifies Before Congress on Antisemitism

PROTESTS

Pro-Palestine Activism Now Led by New Groups UNRECOGNIZED. The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee has taken a back seat on organizing in recent weeks, with unrecognized activism groups taking center stage.

SEE PAGE 8

EDITORIAL

AP or the (Other) Devil We Know TESTING. Though we recognize that the College Board and its offerings are flawed, we still see value in a rigorous curricular option for high-school students administered by a non-governmental body.

SEE PAGE 11

METRO

PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY appeared before Congress on Tuesday for a nearly six-hour testimony about antisemitism on college campuses. Here are the major takeaways, controversies, and responses from the hearing. SEE PAGE 6 TOBY R. MA — CRIMSON DESIGNER

DOXXING

Doxxed Students Call for Support from Harvard

BY JOYCE E. KIM AND ASHER J. MONTGOMERY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­I

n the two months since the release of a controversial Harvard student group statement the day of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, dozens of members of co-signing groups have experienced doxxing attacks, rescinded job offers, and safety concerns.

The statement, which was penned by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and originally cosigned by more than 30 other groups, held Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence. Even as groups have withdrawn their endorsements, students said doxxing attacks have persisted — and escalated.

Several Cambridge residents told The Crimson that last month they received

HMS

AND AMMY M. YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

PHASE A of construction on Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus began in June, but some Allston residents have criticized disruptions due to the construction and a lack of communication.

SEE PAGE 12

Over the past two months, The Crimson interviewed seven students in groups that signed onto the controversial statement who described facing hateful, pervasive, and aggressive doxxing. Despite efforts by the University to support these students, all seven said they have felt a lack of institutional support and have turned to guidance from other students.

These students were granted anonymity for this article due to ongoing safety concerns.

In a video message published Oct. 12, University President Claudine Gay said Harvard “rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs.”

“Our University rejects hate — hate of Jews, hate of Muslims, hate of any group of people based on their faith, their national origin, or any aspect of their identity,” Gay said. “Our University rejects the harassment or intimidation of individu-

als based on their beliefs.”

‘Terrifying’ Beginning on Oct. 7 — the date of the attack on Israel and the PSC statement — some students affiliated with organizations that co-signed the statement said they began receiving death threats in their inboxes and across social media platforms.

Students found their photos and personal information — including full names, class years, extracurricular activities, past employment, and hometowns — plastered on websites and social media accounts characterizing them as “terrorist sympathizers” and antisemites.

The doxxing attacks came in the wake of national backlash — including from prominent alumni, federal lawmakers, and professors — that condemned the PSC

SEE PAGE 4

DONOVAN

External Panel Reviews Donovan Alleges Project Anatomical Gift Program Ended Due to Meta Ties

BY JADE LOZADA

Allstonians Criticize Impact of ERC Work

unsigned mailers with no return address that doxxed 26 students allegedly affiliated with nine of the co-signing organizations. The mailers were postmarked from Salt Lake City.

At least six of the nine groups — which were described by the letter as “organizations who excused the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust” — had withdrawn their endorsements in October.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement last week that the University and the Harvard University Police Department are aware of the letters and are “continuing to monitor the matter.”

The mailed letters follow a pattern of doxxing campaigns, from a truck that displayed the names and faces of students whose groups signed the statement to personalized website domains that condemned individual students.

An external panel released recommendations for changes to Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program Thursday morning, nearly six months after its morgue manager was accused of stealing organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research.

The panel’s 24-page report, completed Nov. 22, did not include factual findings about the thefts themselves, instead issuing recommendations for updating AGP’s operations, hiring processes, staffing structures, and cadaver tracking systems.

The panel also advised AGP to develop standardized, centralized policies and procedures for the morgue and update existing ones.

In June, former HMS morgue manager Cedric Lodge was indicted on counts of conspiracy and aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of stolen goods.

Lodge pleaded not guilty in June. Class action lawsuits from family members of cadaver donors against the University

soon followed, as did further prosecution of the alleged human remains trafficking network that sent parts of the cadavers across the country.

In an email to HMS and School of Dental Medicine affiliates, University Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 and HMS Dean George Q. Daley ’82 said that HMS Dean for Medical Education Bernard S. Chang ’93 will chair a task force dedicated to reviewing and creating an implementation plan for the recommendations made by the panel.

“We take our responsibility for oversight of the Anatomical Gift Program seriously,” the administrators wrote. “We owe it to our community, and especially to our anatomical donors and their loved ones, to ensure that Harvard is worthy of those who, through selfless generosity, have chosen and will in the future choose to advance medical education and research.”

The panel, whose report was initially scheduled to release at the end of the summer, consisted of three members from outside the University — Sally S. Aiken, the retired chief medical examiner of Spokane County; Robert J. McKeon,

SEE PAGE 9

BY ASHER J. MONTGOMERY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Misinformation expert Joan M. Donovan called for an investigation into the Harvard Kennedy School, alleging that the school terminated her project at the school and pressured her to leave under the influence of donors with ties to Meta.

In a 248-page disclosure by nonprofit legal group Whistleblower Aid last week, Donovan alleged that Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf targeted Donovan and her team “to protect the interests of high value donors with obvious and direct ties to Meta/Facebook.”

The Kennedy School leadership aimed to “diminish — if not destroy — their research and public engagement despite the ample funding raised by Dr. Donovan, which still resides in Harvard University’s bank account,” the disclosure alleged.

Donovan’s attorneys at Whistleblower Aid, Andrew P. Bakaj and Kyle Gardiner, submitted the disclosure, dated Nov. 28, to Harvard President Claudine Gay, University Vice President and General Counsel Diane E. Lopez, Secretary of Education

Miguel A. Cardona, and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton confirmed that Gay received the disclosure but did not comment further.

HKS spokesperson James F. Smith wrote in a statement that the disclosure’s claims of “unfair treatment and donor interference are false.”

Meta and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Department of Education declined to comment, stating that the Office for Civil Rights does not confirm complaints.

Donovan’s forced exit from the Kennedy School, first reported by The Crimson, came after the school informed her last fall that it would be “winding down” the Technology and Social Change project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy that she helmed by summer 2024 — a decision that prompted more than 100 Harvard affiliates to call for Elmendorf’s resignation.

Smith told The Crimson in February that the decision was made because the

SEE PAGE 5

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON

LAST WEEK

DECEMBER 8, 2023

KENNEDY SCHOOL

COLLEGE

LAW SCHOOL

Experts Talk Impact of AI on Policy

Mid-Year College Grads Celebrated

HLS Professor Charles Fried Retires

AI AND DEMOCRACY. Experts, policymakers, and Harvard affiliates discussed generative artificial intelligence and potential regulations of the technology at a conference hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School this weekend. The conference, titled “AI & Democracy,” lasted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 and was attended by students across the University, as well as by neighboring institutions and members of government. Several high profile panelists spoke at the conference, including former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

OFF-CYCLE GRADUATES. Harvard affiliates gathered at Science Center Hall B on Friday to commemorate the off-cycle 2023 graduates of Harvard College. The annual event celebrated roughly 200 off-cycle graduates, either November or March degree candidates. The event featured remarks from Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Alumni Association Executive Director Sarah C. Karmon, and student speakers. Khurana encouraged students to embrace their unusual timing of graduation.

BY EMAN H. ABDUREZAK, TSION DANIEL, AND HELINA TAMIRU — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

BY AZUSA M. LIPPIT AND SHEEREA X. YU — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

FRIED RETIRES. Last week, Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried — a former U.S. solicitor general and associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — announced he would retire on July 1, 2024, following a sabbatical leave in the spring semester. A renowned conservative legal scholar, Fried has served as faculty adviser to Harvard’s chapter of the Federalist Society for more than 40 years. After over six decades serving on the law school’s faculty, Fried will retire as one of Harvard’s longest serving professors.

BY JO B. LEMANN AND NEIL H. SHAH — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERs

AROUND THE IVIES YALE STUDENTS PROTEST UNIVERSITY’S INVESTMENTS IN WEAPON MANUFACTURERS A group of Yale students held a protest on Dec. 1, demanding the Yale Corporation— the University’s 16-member board of trustees —to divest from alleged investments to weapon manufacturers that profit from the Israel-Hamas War. The organizers gathered over 1,600 signatures, as of Dec. 3, for a petition demanding an entire divestment from the weapons industry.

In Photos: Allston Makers Show Their Craft at Winter Market

BY ELYSE C. GONCALVES AND JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHERS

FROM MICROPHOTOGRAPHY TO METALWORKING

Local artists, craftspeople, and creators gathered to exhibit and sell their work at the Artisans Asylum in Allston this past Saturday. The event, the Winter Makers Market, welcomed residents to purchase works from the artists and ask them about their work.

Located on Holton Street, the Artisans Asylum is a space for local artists to practice their craft. The nonprofit rents small studio cubicles for artists to create in and offers specialty equipment ranging from oscilloscopes and enameling kilns to knitting needles and yarn.

THE YALE DAILY NEWS

PENN PRESIDENT TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS ON ANTISEMITISM Penn President Magill gave testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5. Magill testified alongside Harvard University President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth. Magill said Penn is committed to providing support and resources to students affected by doxxing and harassment.

BOSTON BEADING. Pat Iverson and Kathryn Black own a shop called Beads Without End. ELYSE C. GONCALVES — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

PRINCETON URGE DIVESTMENT FROM CORPORATIONS TIED WITH ISRAEL’S MILITARY A group of students and faculty demanded Princeton University to divest and disassociate from companies involved with Israel’s military activities in a letter addressed to the University.

The letter garnered 484 signatures as of Dec. 4 and is at least the sixth attempt in the last 20 years made by affiliates to call divestment from companies tied to Israel.

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

NOT FOR SALE. Born in Czechoslovakia, Barbara Sitar has traveled throughout Europe and the U.S. for her work. She was previously in California for six years for an exhibit before moving to Boston last year, where she has taught and lived since. Sitar does not sell her art. She said the exhibition at the Makers Market was a way for her to share her craft with others, regardless of their experience with art.

ELYSE C. GONCALVES — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

CORNELL ADDS IDENTITY-FOCUSED APPLICATION QUESTIONS IN REACTION TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OVERTURN Cornell’s undergraduate admissions introduced a new identity-based essay prompt for the 202324 application cycle following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision. The new prompt asks applicants to reflect on personal life experiences that pertain to Cornell’s founding motto. Affiliates expressed concern that admissions would face greater challenges in selecting a diverse student body despite the new addition to the application.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN

BELTS, BRACELETS, & BUCKLES. Hope Zimmerman sells leather goods including custom belts, bracelets, buckles cast from seashells on Cape Cod, collars, and hair accessories. Like many of the artisans at the Asylum, Zimmerman’s craft began as a hobby before developing into a full-fledged business.

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

STUDENT GROUPS ORGANIZE EMPTY SHABBAT TABLE TO HONOR HOSTAGES HELD BY HAMAS AND CALL FOR THEIR RETURN Students Supporting Israel, Aryeh, and J Street CU held a gathering around an empty Shabbat table set with the photos and names of the people held hostage in Gaza. The event featured speeches from student leaders from Columbia College and Columbia graduate programs.

Three students who spoke shared testimonies of the released hostages and their families. About 100 people were in attendance to advocate for the hostages immediate return.

THE COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR

METALLURGY. Eden Attar and Scraps sparcS, who specialize in welding and blacksmithing, demonstrated their work outside the entrance to the market. Attar teaches welding and plasma cutting; sparcS also runs socials and drag nights at the shop.

MICROGRAPHS. Jess Holz, a photographer and microscopist based in Allston, produces “micrographs” using pieces of plants and insects.

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

NEXT WEEK

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

What’s Next

IN THE REAL WORLD ISRAELI TROOPS INVADE SOUTHERN GAZA AS NEXT PHASE OF WAR BEGINS Israeli soldiers expanded their ground invasion of southern Gaza between Friday and Sunday, according to the New York Times. The military warned civilians to evacuate Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city, as the strikes began on Monday, soon after the Israel-Hamas truce. The military has not confirmed a ground invasion of the south. Israel’s invasion of the south is predicted to be the most intense phase of the ongoing war, which began after a deadly attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas on Israel.

UKRAINE AID FALTERS IN SENATE OVER BORDER SECURITY The White House warned that Ukraine aid is running out by the end of the year, but President Joseph Biden’s push for more aid has faltered over ongoing security negotiations. Republicans plan to block funding on Wednesday unless Democrats agree to stricter immigration measures at the US-Mexico border. Ukraine needs more ammunition because their counteroffensive against Russia in southern Ukraine has failed to meet their targets. President Volodymyr Zelensky was expected to make a virtual appearance but canceled at the last minute, according to the New York Times.

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

Friday 12/8

Monday 12/11

Wednesday 12/13

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES: THE MUSICAL

OMI MERCHANTS IN THE COLONIAL WORLD: THE CASE OF MINAKAI

WAR IN UKRAINE: WHERE WE ARE NOW

Loeb Drama Center, 7:30 p.m.

Come see the run of “Real Women Have Curves” put on by the American Repertory Theater. The musical is set in 1987 Los Angeles and centers an 18-year-old ready to leave home. A child of immigrants, she dreams of a career in New York City, but would risk turning away from her parents’ expectations.

Bowie-Vernon Conference Room, CGIS Knafel Building, 12 p.m.

Stanford History Professor Jun Uchida will be in conversation with Harvard’s Andrew Gordon about Ōmi merchants of the transpacific Japanese Diaspora. The event is sponsored by the Program on US-Japan Relations.

Thursday 12/14

Tuesday 12/12

Saturday 12/9 DENSITY 2036: CRAIG TABORN’S ‘BUSY GRIEFS AND ENDANGERED CHARMS’

Holden Chapel, 8 p.m.

Harvard Music Department presents a musical performance by Craig Taborn featuring Claire Chase. The work builds from Professor Chase’s ongoing Density 2036 project, which seeks to build a new repertory for the flute.

Virtual Event, 12 p.m.

Alexandra Vacroux speaks at this event presented by The Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution and The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School about the current state of the war in Ukraine.

FREE SPEECH, POLITICAL SPEECH, AND HATE SPEECH ON CAMPUS

Virtual Event, 4 p.m.

The Harvard Radcliffe Institute is hosting a panel to discuss the academic freedom and legal rules that govern how universities respond to conflict.

This panel features professors Tomiko BrownNagin, Jeannie Suk Gersen, Nadine Strossen ’72, and Keith E. Whittington. Panelists will also discuss issues in the context of the Gaza crisis.

HARVARD DIVERSITY DISCUSSION ON RACE AND CHILDHOOD: CULTURAL UPBRINGING

Virtual, 5 p.m.

Join the Harvard Gazette for a group discussion of shared experiences and personal opinions on cultural upbringing.

Friday 12/15 CERAMICS PROGRAM SHOW AND SALE

Sunday 12/10

Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Head to the Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program for the annual Winter Show and Sale. The Show and Sale will feature ceramics by staff, instructors, and participants of ceramic classes. Over the four days of the sale, more than 100 artists will show their work.

THE 114TH ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CAROL SERVICE

Memorial Church, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.

The Harvard University Choir presents the Annual Christmas Carol Service. The event is America’s oldest carol service and is open to the public.

SENATE APPROVES MILITARY PROMOTIONS AFTER BLOCKADE BY TUBERVILLE LIFTED Hundreds of military promotions were approved after Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama lifted his blockade, which delayed the promotions for almost a year, according to the New York Times. The Senate confirmed all 440 promotions. Tuberville’s almost-year long blockade was over a new Pentagon policy that provided time-off and reimbursement for abortions or fertility care. Chuck Schumer, a senator from New York, praised the promotions for the military officers. The blockade had left hundreds in limbo.

CRIMSON CHEER

NIGERIA’S PRESIDENT ESTABLISHES INQUIRY INTO DEADLY MILITARY STRIKE President Bola Ahmed Tinubu calls for an inquiry after a military strike killed at least 85 civilians and injured at least 66 people on Sunday night.

The military said a drone strike was responsible. The strikehit the Tudun Biri village, according to the New York Times. Many of the victims of the attack were gathered for a religious celebration. Non-governmental organization Amnesty International stated the death toll is closer to 120 people. Tinubu claimed the incident was a “bombing mishap.” Nigeria has struggled with extremist groups, military strikes, and security crises for decades.

JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

THE HARVARD CRIMSON Cara J. Chang ’24 President

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

Cynthia V. Lu ’24

Managing Editor

Business Manager

Magazine Chairs Io Y. Gilman ’25 Amber H. Levis ’25

Design Chairs Sophia Salamanca ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25

Eleanor V. Wikstrom ’24 Christina M. Xiao ’24

Blog Chairs Tina Chen ’24 Hana Rehman ’25

Multimedia Chairs Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25

Arts Chairs Anya L. Henry ’24 Alisa S. Regassa ’24

Sports Chairs Mairead B. Baker ’24 Aaron B. Shuchman ’25

Technology Chairs Kevin Luo ’24 Justin Y. Ye ’24

Associate Managing Editors Leah J. Teichholtz ’24 Meimei Xu ’24 Editorial Chairs

3

Associate Business Manager Derek S. Chang ’24 Copyright 2023, 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

Night Editors Ariel H. Kim ’24 Eric Yan ’24

Sophia C. Scott ’25 Leah J. Teichholtz ’24 Meimei Xu ’24

Assistant Night Editors Ella L. Jones ’25 Emily R. Willrich ’25 Jina H. Choe ’26 Caroline K. Hsu ’26 Azusa M. Lippit ’26 Thomas J. Mete ’26 Ayumi Nagatomi ’26 Rysa Tahilramani ’26

Design Editors Toby R. Ma ’24 Nayeli Cardozo ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25 Laurinne P. Eugenio ’26

Story Editors Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

Photo Editors Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25 Addison Y. Liu ’25 Nathanael Tjandra ’26

CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.

Editorial Editors Tommy Barone ’25 J. Sellers Hill ’25 Jacob M. Miller ’25 Arts Editor Zachary J. Lech ’24 Sports Editors Thomas G. Harris ’25 Aaron B. Shuchman ’25

Botched

4

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

NEWS

DECEMBER 8, 2023

DOXXING FROM PAGE 1

Doxxed Students Decry Harassment, Call for Greater Support statement and decried its signatories.

An Arab Muslim undergraduate who has experienced severe doxxing described the attacks as “incredibly scary” and “terrifying,” especially as Harvard attracted global attention in the days following the statement.

Another doxxed undergraduate said her family was tracked down and contacted, with their full names and professions shared online.

In mid-October, a billboard truck displaying the names and faces of students under the heading “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” arrived in Harvard Square, circling campus across several days. It also circled New Haven for this year’s Harvard-Yale football game on Nov. 19.

The truck — as well as several website domains of students’ full names — was funded by conservative media advocacy group Accuracy in Media, which is headed by Adam Guillette.

Guillette wrote in an Oct. 25 post on X that the truck would be visiting students at their homes so “they can explain to their neighbors why they don’t like the Jews.”

One student said being forced to call his family to warn them that the truck could arrive outside their house made the week one of the worst in his life.

In posts to X, Guillette wrote that he does not believe AIM’s work qualifies as doxxing because student information was taken from social media sites like LinkedIn and articles in The Crimson and other outlets.

Almost all of the students interviewed for this article said they appeared on the truck, which they said created physical safety concerns and an atmosphere of “emotional unsafety.”

“It all felt very scary, very heavy, and very stressful and just so worrying,” said one doxxed member of the PSC. Some students — regardless of whether or not they hold a leadership position in one of the signatory groups or saw the controversial statement — have been doxxed “simply based on affinity group affiliation,” according to a doxxed undergraduate student.

“This doxxing is really targeting the most marginalized students with vulnerable immigration status, racial background, religious background,” the student said.

A number of the student groups that initially signed the PSC statement took part in an informal agreement to circulate and sign each others’ statements in a show of solidarity across affinity groups, according to the Arab Muslim undergraduate.

They said that organizations have independent processes for signing onto statements that often don’t require unanimous agreement among members.

Once the backlash and doxxing attacks ensued following the statement, many student organizations were “left with no choice but to retract” in order to protect members’ safety, they said. Ultimately, at least 10 groups pulled their support from the initial statement.

When the doxxing began, a student organization leader said members of their club did their best to limit their online presences by archiving social media posts, changing the visibility of their accounts, hibernating LinkedIn profiles, and removing associations with particular organizations.

But lists of the co-signing groups and students affiliated with those organizations continue to circulate. Several students found that their personal information was still accessible via internet archive sites.

‘Just Inhumane to Me’ Several students said they remain concerned about the impact the doxxing may have on their professional futures and called for greater support from the University and the Mignone Center for Career Success.

Multiple CEOs — most prominently billionaire hedge fund manager Bill A. Ackman ’88 — have taken to social media to call for students to be publicly named to face disciplinary action and professional consequences. Some, like Ackman, said they would refuse to hire

A truck with the names and faces of students associated with a pro-Palestinian statement drove on campus. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

a group chat to coordinate and advise each other on the best ways to remove their private information online, according to an undergraduate.

Following conversations with Harvard administrators, students also created a guide containing advice around online privacy settings, interacting with the press, and reporting harassment. The guide also included specific points of contact for international and undocumented students.

Some students have gathered at study breaks to “create a sense of normalcy” and to “feel like we have a space amongst the hatred we’ve been facing,” one doxxed organizer said.

In the first two weeks of the doxxing attacks, the Arab Muslim student said they felt overwhelmed as one of just a few students finding and distributing resources on doxxing while simultaneously dealing with their own concerns.

They described feeling like “a student hotline” because other doxxed students would call them at all times to ask for advice and next steps, adding that it was “scary and disheartening” to feel that students were expected to be first responders to the doxxing.

Multiple doxxed students said deans, lower-level administrators, and professors have reached out to provide support and offer academic accommodations.

In the email sent to doxxed undergraduates announcing the task force, Dean of Students Thomas Dunne described doxxing as a “repugnant assault on our community.”

One student said it would be “really meaningful” to see this type of language in a statement publicly shared with the entire University. Gay has not used the word “doxxing” in her public statements and addresses, though she has criticized harassment and intimidation broadly.

‘The Palestine Exception’

A student holds up a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, during a protest on campus. JOEY HUANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

students whose organizations signed onto the joint statement.

One doxxed graduate student said that a company rescinded their employment offer because their investigation concluded they were engaged in activities that were “widely interpreted as supporting terrorism.”

Another doxxed international undergraduate said he has been forced to rethink the feasibility of pursuing a career in the United States.

The Mignone Center for Career Success has intervened on behalf of students with employers and offered to write letters and contact employers, according to College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo.

One doxxed undergraduate student said she is unsure of how the doxxing will affect her professionally. She said despite current resources available, it was difficult to know what future resources will be available for students who aren’t currently searching for fellowships and jobs.

Four of the interviewed students said they were concerned about the doxxing of undocumented and international students, who could face heightened risk of deportation or travel limitations.

One student pointed to the doxxing of members of Act on a Dream — a group supporting undocumented students on campus — that withdrew support for the statement on Oct. 10, cit-

ing “miscommunication and a lack of due diligence in sharing the statement with the entirety of the board.”

“You’re gonna doxx the undocumented students group — that’s just inhumane to me,” the student said.

The Office of International Education has published resources — such as the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and the Harvard Alumni Association — to connect students with support, per Palumbo.

‘Too Little, Too Late’ Immediately following the swift backlash to the statement in October, administrators with the College, the Dean of Students Office, and undergraduate residences directly reached out to impacted students and have continued to stay in contact, according to Palumbo.

Harvard has also increased police presence around campus, provided resources on legal aid, and hosted sessions with Harvard University Information Technology and HUPD officials.

On Oct. 20, HUIT published a document listing information and resources for Harvard affiliates facing online abuse or harassment, along with a new site to report such instances to the school.

More than two weeks after the initial doxxing attacks, the College announced a temporary task force to support students

experiencing doxxing, harassment, and online safety breaches.

The task force — coordinated by Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education Meghan Lockwood and Dudley Community Interim Resident Dean Christopher M. Gilbert — serves as a point of contact to share with students available resources, coordinate services, receive student concerns and suggestions, and communicate with College administrators.

These resources were shared with all residential staff and student organizations, including Harvard Hillel, per Palumbo.

Though the task force was originally slated to wind down on Nov. 30, according to a weekly update email to undergraduates on that day, it will remain in operation until Dec. 20.

While students described the task force as “incredibly well-intentioned” and a “really great first step” in centralizing support, they added they believed it was also inefficient and underpublicized.

Administrators offered DeleteMe, an online service that helps remove online personal information, weeks after private information had already circulated across social media, according to one student.

One doxxed undergraduate said they felt that the task force was “too little, too late” and many of the concerns it sought to address were irreversible.

“Now, there’s nothing that can be done,” they said.

Another doxxed student said HUIT services were helpful but limited by social media platforms’ terms of use.

One student said they saw the DSO decision not to publicize the task force in an email to the full student body as an “utter failure to protect students,” adding that they knew students who had been doxxed but did not receive updates on the task force.

The Nov. 30 email about the task force extension was sent to all undergraduates.

“It’s all been very much, ‘We’ll give you hugs in private, but we will not say or do anything publicly,’” they said.

A graduate student also criticized the lack of a centralized task force for students across the University who had been doxxed.

The University posted a webpage titled “Resources in Times of Crisis” including an anonymous reporting hotline and the HUIT guidelines around countering online abuse.

Palumbo declined to comment on the specific student criticisms.

‘A Student Hotline’ Students said they have turned to their peers as a support system as a way of “filling in the gaps” left by the administration and quickly relaying information and resources to one another.

Doxxed students have formed

Almost all of the doxxed students — many of whom had previously participated in pro-Palestine advocacy — said members of the PSC and other activist groups have long faced safety concerns and privacy threats.

One undergraduate said the doxxing was “not a new threat,” but he has been surprised by the extent to which it has been “heinous and aggressive.”

In spring 2022, members of The Crimson’s Editorial Board were doxxed after the publication of a staff editorial in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which calls for an end to international support for Israel until the country changes its policies toward Palestinians. The Crimson’s Editorial Board operates separately from the News Board.

Several interviewed students described the doxxing attacks as an effort to silence students’ voices.

“The Palestine exception is real — the Palestine exception to free speech,” the student said.

The doxxed graduate student said her first experience with doxxing took place during her senior year of college. The incident, she said, taught her about the risk of pro-Palestine advocacy.

“Our speech is not received kindly by people who do not look kindly on our existence,” she said. “This is part of a much broader practice to suppress speech that is sympathetic to Palestine and speech that is truthful on Palestine.”

Still, some PSC organizers said the heightened backlash following the statement was unexpected because past statements have not received as much widespread attention.

Another student worried that going forward, student groups might be “a lot more skeptical” about showing support for one another due to the doxxing attacks and University response.

“I worry how students will feel that their ability to show solidarity for each other is curtailed and if that support network still exists,” the student said.

“That’s really scary, but also heartbreaking,” they added. joyce.kim@thecrimson.com asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com

NEWS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

5

DSO

Dean Dunne Talks Student Activities Fee OPTING OUT. An increasing number of students have opted out of the $200 Student Activities Fee.

BY ELLA L. JONES AND JOHN N. PEÑA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­H

arvard College Dean of Students Thomas Dunne said during a Tuesday interview that the Dean of Students Office is working to understand the history and purpose of the student activities fee as an increasing number of students opt out of the $200 annual expense.

The SAF fund has fallen by $70,000 this year, according to the Harvard Undergraduate Association’s treasurer, leading to budget cuts for the HUA and House Committees, as well as the College Events Board and the Harvard Foundation Student Advisory Committee. Dunne said he is “particularly interested in understanding what our options are” to rework the fee.

Though Dunne said student

activities fees are common at other schools, he said giving students the choice to opt out is an “outlier” among peer institutions. The DSO is now looking to understand the nature of the fee and its history.

“I’m not sure I understand the rationale or the need for the optout,” he said.

Some students have called for the student activities fee to be fully or partially covered by financial aid, but according to Dunne, there is not a strong correlation between opting out of paying the fee and socioeconomic status.

“There’s not a strong correlation where it indicates that the opt-outs are coming disproportionately from any one part of the student body,” Dunne said.

Dunne added that he believes student leaders and the DSO can play a role in advertising the importance of the student activities fee.

“Having people understand how funding happens at Harvard in micro and macro ways I think is really useful,” he said.

Dunne also discussed the fol-

lowing topics: Israel-Hamas Conflict Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Harvard’s campus has been enveloped by student reactions from activists in a series of protests, vigils, and demonstrations.

Dunne, who is a member of the University’s newly established antisemitism advisory group, emphasized the role of education and empathy in responding to the conflict. Participating in the group has been Dunne’s “largest point of connection” with students during his first semester at Harvard, he said.

He is also involved with Harvard’s task force for doxxed students, which aims to centralize resources for students facing online harassment.

“Sometimes you’re able to find yourself in conversations where you want to provide a solution to students that you’re not able to,” he said. “It’s difficult because you feel you can empathize with the level of fear and frustration a student is experiencing, and you

Harvard College Dean of Students Thomas Dunne started in his role this semester.

COURTESY OF SAMEER A. KHAN

have a limited range of responses.”

Dunne, who is concluding his first semester in Cambridge, said it is difficult for him to comment on whether he believes there is increased antisemitism on Harvard’s campus since Oct. 7.

“I do think when you look at how people articulate the college experience at Harvard, it’s something people reference, and it would not be surprising to me that we’re in a more fraught time since October 7 around antisemitism, Islamophobia, other campus climate issues,” Dunne said.

“I would not be surprised if people said, ‘Yes, there’s a higher rate of antisemitism now

than there has been in the last 10 years,’” he added.

First Semester at Harvard Dunne said though his first semester has been marked by responding to “urgent issues,” he has also enjoyed interacting with undergraduates and familiarizing himself with the campus.

“There’s something particularly gratifying of also being in this first year here together,” Dunne said. “I’ve been to a number of long standing Harvard traditions, I did morning prayers, which was an amazing experience. And so it’s been an incredibly rewarding and positive expe-

rience.”

He added that living so close to campus has allowed him to gain familiarity with student life, specifically referencing witnessing a party at a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a socalled humor magazine.

“There was a DJ at the Lampoon that I really enjoyed. It was a really good DJ, and they had a ski party,” Dunne said. “It’s funny when you’re the lurker.”

“I don’t know who that student was, but I certainly appreciated it,” he said of the DJ. ella.jones@thecrimson.com john.pena@thecrimson.com

Rabbi David Wolpe Resigns From Donovan Says Donors With Antisemitism Advisory Group DONOVAN FROM PAGE 1

BY JOHN N. PEÑA AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­rominent Rabbi David J. P Wolpe announced that he had stepped down from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory group in a Thursday post on X, citing University President Claudine Gay’s Tuesday testimony before Congress and an ideology that “places Jews as oppressors” at Harvard.

“With great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” wrote Wolpe, a visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School.

Gay — whose response to the Oct 7. Hamas attack against Israel faced severe backlash from alumni, donors, and national politicians — announced the formation of the advisory group in late October at a speech at Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center.

During her speech, Gay said the group would focus on “eradicating antisemitism from our community,” and later said it would work with Harvard administrators to implement antisemitism training for affiliates.

But Wolpe, in his statement, suggested the group was illequipped to combat an antisemitic and “evil” ideology which

he said “grips far too many of the students and faculty” at the University.

“Battling that combination of ideologies is the work of more than a committee or a single university,” Wolpe wrote.

“This is the task of educating a generation, and also a vast unlearning.”

In a statement, Gay wrote that she was “grateful for Rabbi Wolpe’s advice, perspective and friendship.”

“With thoughtfulness and candor, he has deepened my and our community’s understanding of the unacceptable presence of antisemitism here at Harvard,” Gay wrote. “We have more work to do and his contributions will help shape our path forward.”

“Antisemitism has no place in the Harvard community, and I am committed to ensuring no member of our Jewish community faces this hate in any form,” she added.

Wolpe also addressed Gay’s testimony during the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Tuesday hearing on antisemitism on college campuses.

Over the course of more than five hours, Gay defended the University’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks and the school’s commitment to free expression.

But her responses — particularly during a testy exchange with Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) over whether calls for a genocide of Jews would vio-

late Harvard policies — only intensified furor against Gay and the University, sparking a denunciation from Harvard Hillel leadership and calls for her resignation.

In a Thursday evening interview with The Crimson, Wolpe declined to comment on calls for the president to resign but said her testimony was “very painful.”

Nonetheless, Wolpe said he believes the problem of antisemitism extended beyond Gay as an individual.

“I both like and respect Claudine,” Wolpe said. “But I think that the kinds of changes that would be required are really deep and fundamental, and I’m not sure that my being on the antisemitism committee is, in one way or another, going to accelerate the pace of such change.”

He said that a more concerted effort is necessary to address antisemitism at Harvard.

“The problems at Harvard, however considerable they are, are solvable by the resources of Harvard, which are even more considerable,” Wolpe said. “But it’s going to take an enormous amount of will, and intention, and focus, and rethinking to make that happen, and I hope that it does.”

Asked whether he felt Harvard administrators are exhibiting such willingness to combat antisemitism, Wolpe responded, “We’ll see.” john.pena@thecrimson.com elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com

Harvard Divinity School visiting scholar David J. Wolpe resigned from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee on Thursday. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Ties to Meta Pressured HKS project lacked “intellectual and academic leadership by a full HKS faculty member” — a schoolwide requirement.

Donovan rebutted this explanation in a declaration submitted alongside the Whistleblower Aid disclosure, writing that she was never told of such a requirement when she was hired and that “exceptions to this general rule are routinely granted at Harvard, which was true in my case.”

“While I was hired as the TASC project director in 2018 and was promoted to research director of Shorenstein in 2020, this rationale comes as a big surprise,” Donovan wrote in a Feb. 2 email to colleagues, per the disclosure.

“If I had known that we would be dismantled before the 2024 election, I would have built our project elsewhere.”

Smith wrote in an emailed statement Tuesday that per HKS policy, all research projects require leadership by a faculty member and that the school unsuccessfully attempted to find a faculty member to oversee the research.

“After that effort did not succeed, the project was given more than a year to wind down,” Smith wrote. “Joan Donovan was not fired, and most members of the research team chose to remain at the School in new roles.”

Donovan wrote in the declaration that she had planned to move the TaSC project to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society — an effort that was scuttled after the publication of The Crimson’s article and the announcement that the project would be shut down.

The disclosure cites a $500 million donation to the University made by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2021 for a University-wide center on artificial intelligence as a potential influence on the Kennedy School’s decision to end Donovan’s project.

The donation was given just a few months after HKS came into possession of the “Facebook Files” — a set of internal research documents detailing the social media platform’s potential for harm — though none of this money was received by the Kennedy School.

The TaSC project ultimately ended earlier than the proposed timeline, ceasing its work on Aug. 31. Donovan was given the offer to continue on as an adjunct lecturer at the school but ultimately left Harvard that month to join Boston University’s College of Communication as a tenure-track assistant professor.

“Once I felt the Kennedy School didn’t back me as a scholar, I had to leave,” she said in an in-

terview with The Crimson in August 2023.

In the disclosure, Donovan alleged that Elmendorf told her in a one-on-one meeting in August 2022 that he was shutting down TaSC and that she did “not have academic freedom” or legal rights to her research.

“I realized he must mean that he would no longer allow me to do any work given the possibility my work could upset Facebook,” Donovan wrote. “I was intimidated into submission and I was afraid for my team, my career and my family since the Dean was clear that he would not hesitate to use any avenue he could to control and silence me and the entire TASC team.”

Elmendorf said in an interview Tuesday evening that the school’s faculty members hire “roughly a couple of hundred staff members” for research and that faculty members have the final say over major research decisions.

“The staff members’ ideas and effort are important, but the final decisions about which projects to pursue, what funds to solicit for projects, and when research results are ready to be published are elements of academic freedom that are left to the faculty members,” he said.

At HKS, Donovan took on a prominent role in the Facebook archive project, an initiative to preserve internal research documents released by 2021 Facebook whistleblower Frances B. Haugen detailing the technologies’ potential for social harm.

Donovan stated that she reached out to HKS professor Latanya A. Sweeney in October 2021 to launch what later became fbarchive.org, an online archive of the files — a project that Donovan alleged put a target on her back at the school.

“If I had continued to do multi-platform research and had not received the entire cache of Frances Haugen’s Facebook documents, I would have likely been allowed to continue my work along with fundraising and rebuilding the Shorenstein Center’s reputation with donors,” she wrote.

In her declaration, Donovan suggested that potential influence from former Facebook executives Elliot J. Schrage ’81, the company’s former head of communications, and Sheryl Sandberg ’91, the former chief operating officer of Meta Platforms, played a role in her project’s elimination.

“I had been warned by other faculty at Harvard and other universities that Mr. Schrage and Sheryl Sandberg, former

COO of Facebook, were particularly strategic when influencing academia, the media, and their powerful peers,” Donovan wrote, describing the former as “Facebook’s ‘fixer’ within academia.”

In late October 2021, Donovan was invited to speak at the Dean’s Council — a fundraising body for HKS — and spoke about the files in an answer to a question prompted by Shorenstein Center Director Nancy R. Gibbs.

Donovan wrote that Schrage, a member of the Dean’s Council, pressed her on her statements throughout the meeting.

“Mr. Schrage monopolized the discussion by accusing me that my reading of the documents was inaccurate and that he disagreed with all prior discussion about Facebook,” Donovan wrote.

Schrage declined to comment for this article.

The disclosure noted that Elmendorf served as an undergraduate adviser to Sandberg and maintains a lifelong friendship with the former Meta executive — even attending her 2022 wedding.

Sandberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The disclosure also alleged that the school gave a senior Facebook executive permission to audit Donovan’s course in September 2020, adding that she believed he “was also there to monitor her class on Facebook’s behalf.”

Smith wrote in an email that the Kennedy School continues to devote resources to social media research, citing the Facebook Archive and the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, which is the only peer-reviewed misinformation journal.

“Harvard University and Harvard Kennedy School continue to carry out pathbreaking research on misinformation and the role of social media in society,” Smith wrote. “By policy and in practice, donors have no influence over this or other work.”

Sweeney, who served as the co-principal investigator of TaSC, wrote in a statement to The Crimson that the disclosure contains an abundance of “inaccuracies and falsehoods” that she finds to be “self-serving” and “horribly disappointing.” Sweeney also wrote that from the start, she was in charge of FBarchive.

“Meta exerted no influence over FBarchive or any of our/my work,” Sweeney wrote. “Just a few weeks ahead of the public launch, we offered Meta the chance to review the archive for security and privacy concerns and suggest redactions, which we independently elected to accept or reject.” asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

COVER STORY

6

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Gay Testifies Before Congress MILES J. HERSZENHORN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

CLAUDINE GAY testified before Congress about campus antisemitism and efforts to combat it.

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN, NIA L. ORAKWUE, AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

H

arvard President Claudine Gay faced a barrage of tough — and at times aggressive — lines of questioning during the House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing on antisemitism at college campuses on Tuesday.

In a nearly six-hour hearing, Gay testified alongside MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill. The three presidents defended themselves and their universities against allegations that their administrations have not done enough to combat antisemitism and ease tensions on their campuses.

After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, colleges and universities across the country were bitterly divided over support for Israel and Palestine. Nearly two months later, campus tensions remain heightened as fighting continues

in Israel and Gaza.

Gay and Harvard’s administration faced intense scrutiny over the University’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, after Harvard’s initial statement failed to directly condemn Hamas or address a controversial pro-Palestine student statement that labeled Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.

Gay acknowledged in her opening statement that the messaging from Harvard administrators sometimes fell short of the University’s goals.

“I have sought to confront hate while preserving free expression,” Gay said. “This is difficult work, and I know that I have not always gotten it right.”

Once the hearing turned to questioning from committee members, the three university presidents were repeatedly asked their responses to the Israel-Hamas war and antisemitism initiatives at their institutions.

In particular, Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth were grilled on free expression on their campuses, with representatives arguing for bans of pro-Palestine student groups and asking how Jewish students can be better protected.

“We do not punish students for their views,” Gay said. “We hold

them accountable for their conduct and behavior, and any conduct that violates our rules against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action.”

Gay added the disciplinary measures were underway for some students who had violated University policy.

The Crimson previously reported that eight students who participated in a 24-hour occupation of University Hall faced disciplinary hearings under the Harvard College Administrative Board. A ninth student faced a hearing with the equivalent body at the Harvard Divinity School.

Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) dominated much of the questioning during the hearing, often raising her voice at the witnesses as they attempted to answer her questions.

Stefanik told Gay at multiple points during the hearing that she should step down from her post as president of Harvard, echoing statements she previously made online and earlier on Tuesday during a press conference before the hearing.

“This is why you should resign,” Stefanik said to Gay after growing frustrated with her responses to a particular line of questioning. “These are unaccept-

able answers across the board.”

Rep. Lisa C. McClain (R-Mich.) criticized the witnesses for resorting to “lip service” rather than providing concrete action plans for combating antisemitism with disciplinary measures.

Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth were also asked by Rep. Michelle E. Steel (R-Calif.) to explain the influence of donors on the universities.

Gay said that donors do not have influence over “how we run the University” and “how we keep our students safe” as a result of their philanthropy. The other two presidents gave similar responses.

Representatives slammed the presidents for being unfamiliar with the ideological makeup of their faculty, to which all three responded that their universities did not collect such data.

In The Crimson’s 2023 annual survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, more than 77 percent of surveyed Harvard faculty identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”

Gay also defended a decision not to fly the Israeli flag in Harvard Yard after a question from Stefanik revealed that the University declined a request to raise the flag above the John Harvard statue.

Gay said her administration

did not grant the request as “it’s been standard protocol at the University for years to only fly the American flag unless we have a visiting dignitary.”

Stefanik, however, noted that the Ukrainian flag was raised above the John Harvard statue last year.

Gay said that decision — made by former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — marked an “exception to a long-standing rule.”

Towards the end of the hearing, Stefanik asked the witnesses if calling for the genocide of Jews breaks their university’s codes of conduct.

Stefanik pressed for a yes or no answer despite Gay’s repeated attempts to contextualize her response.

“Antisemitic speech when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action,” Gay finally responded, repeating a version of statement she made many times over the course of the hearing.

Harvard Hillel President and Crimson Editorial editor Jacob M. Miller ’25 and Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis wrote in an

emailed statement Tuesday evening that Gay’s “refusal to draw a line around threatening antisemitic speech as a violation of Harvard’s policies is profoundly shocking.”

“We are appalled by the need to state the obvious: A call for genocide against Jews is always a hateful incitement of violence,” they continued. “President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students on Harvard’s campus.”

During the hearing, Gay repeatedly tried to emphasize the value of using education to combat a rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia on campuses across the country. Gay announced last month that Harvard would implement antisemitism education and training for affiliates.

“We have spent a lot of time here talking about the importance of accountability for behavior that crosses the line,” Gay said. “We’ve talked about how important it is to denounce language that offends our values.”

“But ultimately, the path forward is education,” she added. miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com nia.orakwue@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

‘I Am Sorry’: Gay Expresses Regret Over Testimony

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­ arvard President Claudine Gay H apologized for her remarks at the end of her congressional testimony, which sparked fierce national criticism and led the leadership of Harvard Hillel to say they don’t trust her to protect Jewish students at the University.

“I am sorry,” Gay said in an interview with The Crimson on Thursday. “Words matter.”

“When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” Gay added.

Gay said she sought to use her testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday to highlight efforts underway at Harvard to combat antisemitism.

Her remarks, however, only served to inflame criticism of Gay’s response to reports of antisemitism on campus.

The full hearing lasted for nearly six hours, but it was a tense 90-second exchange with Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) at the end of Gay’s testimony that went viral on social media, drawing national condemnation from the White House to Harvard’s Jewish center.

“At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Stefanik asked.

“It can be, depending on the context,” Gay responded.

But Stefanik pressed Gay to give a yes or no answer to the question about whether calls for the genocide of Jews constitute a violation of Harvard’s policies.

“Antisemitic speech when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action,” Gay said.

Stefanik tried again.

“So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct, correct?” Stefanik asked.

“Again, it depends on the context,” Gay said.

“It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes and this is why you should resign,” Stefanik shot back. “These are unacceptable answers across the board.”

As the backlash grew into an uproar, Gay issued a statement through Harvard’s official social media channels on Wednesday in an attempt to clarify her response to Stefanik’s line of questioning.

“There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” Gay said. “Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jew-

ish students will be held to account.”

But the damage had been done, an error Gay acknowledged on Thursday as the fallout continued. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced an official congressional investigation into antisemitism at Harvard.

Hours later, Rabbi David Wolpe announced his resignation from an advisory group to combat antisemitism on campus that Gay established only weeks earlier, citing her congressional testimony.

“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay said in the interview.

“What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” she added.

“Substantively, I failed to convey what is my truth,” Gay said.

Gay, however, said it was her pleasure to attend the hearing and answer questions from the Committee’s members.

“When the committee invited me to attend the hearing, I didn’t hesitate to agree,” she said. “It was an opportunity to just convey the depth of both my personal commitment and the institutional commitment to

Claudine Gay sought to provide context on her testimony before Congress in an interview Thursday, apologizing for the pain caused by her words. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

combating antisemitism.”

But Harvard Hillel President Jacob M. Miller ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, and Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis wrote in a statement Tuesday evening that Gay’s testimony did exactly the opposite.

“President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech

calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students on Harvard’s campus,” Hillel’s leadership wrote in the statement.

“President Gay’s testimony fails to reassure us that the University is seriously concerned about the antisemitic rhetoric pervasive on campus.”

Gay said that over the past two

months, she has heard “wrenching testimony about how much pain” students are in.

“To contemplate that something I said amplified that pain — that’s really difficult,” she said.

“It makes me sad.” miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

COVER STORY

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

7

CONGRESS

Gay’s Testimony Stokes Further Backlash UNDER FIRE. Claudine Gay took considerable heat from lawmakers including calls for resignation after her testimony.

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND NIA L. ORAKWUE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

H

arvard President Claudine Gay appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday to quell the backlash against the University, but her testimony only fanned the flames of controversy.

The hearing ended with members of Congress demanding Gay’s resignation and the leadership of Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center, calling her remarks “profoundly shocking” and saying they don’t trust her to protect Jewish students at the University.

The swift blowback to her testimony led Gay to issue a clarification through Harvard’s official social media channels Wednesday afternoon.

“There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” Gay said. “Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”

At the hearing, Gay was repeatedly forced to defend Harvard’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and the University’s efforts to combat antisemitism on its campus.

The hearing, at which MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill also testified, became a test of whether private universities have a responsibility to limit what lawmakers described as hate speech and calls for genocide.

Many Harvard affiliates and politicians criticized Gay’s response to a line of questioning by Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.).

With her allotted five minutes of questioning, Stefanik repeatedly pressed Gay about which statements rise to the level of a violation of Harvard’s policies on bullying and harassment.

Stefanik specifically referenced the phrase “from the river to the sea” and chants like “intifada, intifada” which have been frequently heard during pro-Palestine protests on Harvard’s campus.

Some Jewish groups on campus have condemned these phrases as calls for violence, describing them as “eliminationist.” Pro-Palestinian groups have maintained that the chants are

U.S. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ‘06 (R-N.Y.) reiterated calls for Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation following Tuesday’s testimony. MILES J. HERSZENHORN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

intended as general calls for a free Palestine. Gay explicitly condemned the former phrase in an email to affiliates last month.

While Gay said during the hearing that those phrases are “personally abhorrent” to her, Stefanik pressed Gay on whether speech that calls for genocide violates the University’s policies.

“At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Stefanik asked at the start of a testy exchange with Gay. “It can be, depending on the context,” Gay replied.

Stefanik repeatedly tried to get Gay to give a yes or no answer to the question, growing frustrated as Gay sought to contextualize her response.

“Antisemitic speech when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action,” Gay said.

But Stefanik was not satisfied with that response either.

“This is why you should resign,” Stefanik said. “These are unacceptable answers across the board.”

Stefanik’s outrage echoed from Washington to Cambridge as the exchange went viral on social media and was widely con-

demned by Harvard affiliates on campus and political figures on both sides of the aisle.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates slammed the university presidents over their testimony in a statement released on Wednesday.

“

Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.

Claudine Gay University President

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” Bates said.

Harvard Hillel President Jacob M. Miller ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, and Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis wrote in a statement Tuesday evening that Gay’s “refusal to draw a line

around threatening antisemitic speech as a violation of Harvard’s policies is profoundly shocking.”

“President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students on Harvard’s campus,” Hillel’s leadership added. “President Gay’s testimony fails to reassure us that the University is seriously concerned about the antisemitic rhetoric pervasive on campus.”

Gay also faced criticism for not coming to the defense of pro-Palestinian speech in her testimony before Congress.

Violet T.M. Barron ’26, a member of Harvard Jews for Palestine and a Crimson Editorial editor, wrote in a statement that no one involved in the hearing consulted with Jewish students critical of Israel, despite repeated outreach to Gay and members of the committee.

“This is an unequivocal failure to protect and value the opinions of all Jewish students, instead erasing certain perspectives and reducing the Jewish community at Harvard and nationwide to a monolith,” Barron wrote.

Bill A. Ackman ’88, a billionaire hedge fund manager and one of the fiercest critics of Harvard’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, piled on.

Ackman wrote in a post on X that Gay, Kornbluth, and Magill should all “resign in disgrace” over their testimony.

“Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world?” Ackman wrote. “Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.”

Stefanik’s criticism of Gay didn’t end on Tuesday.

Gay’s attempt at damage control on Wednesday met swift condemnation from the New York Republican in a post on X. “No one is confused about this desperate attempt at cleaning up your pathetic antisemitic answers yesterday,” Stefanik wrote.

“You cannot undo the moral depravity and shame.”

Rep. Kevin P. Kiley ’07 (R-Calif.), another member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, also joined Stefanik’s call for Gay’s resignation.

“President Gay’s utterly inadequate response to the crisis of anti-Semitism on campus has had profoundly negative consequences at Harvard and beyond,” Kiley wrote in a post on X. “Her testimony before our committee confirmed, in the most shocking of ways, that she is not the leader these times require.”

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment beyond the statement released by Gay on Wednesday.

Laurence H. Tribe ’62, a prominent liberal legal scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, wrote in a post on X that he agreed with Stefanik’s criticism of Gay. “I’m no fan of @RepStefanik but I’m with her here,” Tribe wrote. “Claudine Gay’s hesitant, formulaic, and bizarrely evasive answers were deeply troubling to me and many of my colleagues, students, and friends.”

Tribe was not the only unlikely Stefanik ally to echo her criticism of Gay’s testimony. Rep. Jake D. Auchincloss ’10 (D-Mass.) and Rep. Seth W. Moulton ’01 (D-Mass.) released a joint statement on Wednesday condemning Gay’s response to Stefanik’s questioning.

“Harvard ranks last out of 248 universities for support of free speech,” Auchincloss and Moulton said. “But when it comes to denouncing antisemitism, suddenly the university has anxieties about the First Amendment.”

“It rings hollow,” they added. miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com nia.orakwue@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

Congress Launches Antisemitism Investigation Into Harvard

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce launched a congressional investigation into Harvard over allegations of antisemitism on campus, the Committee announced on Thursday.

The investigation into Harvard comes two days after Harvard President Claudine Gay testified before Congress during a tense hearing about antisemitism on college and university campuses. Gay, who testified alongside MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, faced a wave of backlash over her testimony.

Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) announced the investigation in a statement to The Crimson Thursday afternoon.

“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the Education and Workforce Committee is launching an of-

ficial Congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, & Harvard and others,” Stefanik wrote. “We will use our full Congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage.”

The committee announced in a statement on its official X account that it will be taking “additional action to hold Harvard, UPenn, and MIT accountable for failing to provide Jewish students with the safe learning environment they are due under law.”

“These actions will include document requests for their policies and disciplinary records as the Committee examines their seemingly deplorable record,” the committee added.

Gay said in an interview with The Crimson Thursday afternoon that while Harvard has not received official notice of an investigation from the Committee, the University would comply with one.

“I’m not even sure what I’m really responding to, but I understand through the news that there is an inquiry,” Gay said.

“Once we receive official notice, we will comply with whatever information is called for.”

University spokesperson Ja-

son A. Newton wrote in a statement that Harvard “looks forward to sharing information with the Committee” during its

investigation.

“Harvard’s work to combat antisemitism in our community is advancing with the high-

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced an investigation into Harvard over alleged antisemitism on the University’s campus. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

est commitment and attention from University leaders,” he wrote.

Rep. Virginia A. Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, confirmed the opening of a formal congressional hearing into Harvard.

“The testimony we received earlier this week from Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth about the responses of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT to the rampant antisemitism displayed on their campuses by students and faculty was absolutely unacceptable,” Foxx said.

“Committee members have deep concerns with their leadership and their failure to take steps to provide Jewish students the safe learning environment they are due under law.”

“Given those institutional and personal failures, the Committee is opening a formal investigation into the learning environments at Harvard, UPenn, and MIT and their policies and disciplinary procedures,” Foxx added. miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

8

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

NEWS

DECEMBER 8, 2023

COLLEGE

Chabad Hosts Screening of Hamas Attack SCREENING. Harvard Chabad hosted a screening of graphic footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

BY J. SELLERS HILL AND JOHN N. PENA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

M

­ re than 100 people — o including Harvard affiliates, top administrators, and Israeli officials — gathered in the Harvard Art Museums’ Menschel Hall Monday evening for a screening of graphic video footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The film, titled “Bearing Witness,” was produced by the Israel Defense Force Spokesperson’s Unit and depicts roughly 45 minutes of intensely explicit GoPro, cell phone, and CCTV footage depicting acts of murder, mutilation, and other violence from the attacks.

The screening was presented

by Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan and hosted by Harvard Chabad, a Jewish organization on campus.

In a speech before the screening, Erdan warned attendees of its “barbarity and cruelty — the likes of which you have never seen before.”

“Hamas’ savagery — murdering and beheading babies, raping women, burning families alive — could only be carried out because Hamas, just like the Nazis,

Pro-Israel demonstrators gathered outside Harvard Art Museums during the screening. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

views all Israelis, all Jews, as insects that must be exterminated,” he said.

Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, the founder and president of Harvard Chabad, delivered opening remarks at the screening, which he said he was initially resistant to hosting.

“Reflecting on what I would describe as Holocaust-like denial of the atrocities of October 7th — a film that I thought no one should ever have to see — increasingly seems like one that everyone must see,” he said.

“It would be considered a desecration of the dead and of the living to watch this kind of violation

of life — a manifestation of the divine — and the only basis for an exception is if it will help us preserve life. And it’s for that reason that we’re bringing you this evening’s program,” Zarchi told attendees.

Several top University administrators were in attendance, including Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana and University Marshal Katherine O’Dair, who also serves as chief of staff to Harvard President Claudine Gay. Bill A. Ackman ’88, a billionaire hedge fund manager and prominent critic of the University’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks,

also attended the screening and fielded questions from other attendees at its conclusion.

In the days leading up to the screening, Ackman encouraged students, faculty, and Gay to attend in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“In life, there are moments where we are called upon to bear witness and deeply contemplate our history, our humanity, and the implications for our future. This is one of them,” he wrote.

Gay traveled to Washington earlier this week to testify in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about

antisemitism on college and university campuses. Ackman posted that Gay had cited the hearing as the reason that she could not attend the screening when he reached out to request her attendance.

On Monday morning the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee, a pro-Palestine student organization, posted on X that they “strongly condemn the presence of a war criminal on our campus,” referring to Erdan, the Israeli ambassador.

“Erdan travels to Harvard and the UN to conceal Israel’s murder of Palestinians and destruction of their infrastructure. By helping Israel posture as part of the ‘international community,’ he facilitates Israel’s routine and abhorrent violations of international law,” the PSC wrote in a statement on X. Erdan declined to comment for this article but said during his speech that “Israel’s mission in Gaza is not a retaliation, is not a response to October 7th — not at all.”

“It’s only about ensuring that such atrocities never happen again,” he said.

During his remarks, Erdan condemned Harvard’s response to the initial attack and subsequent support for Jewish students.

“From the University’s initial silence following the attack, to extended silence following the pro-terror voices, and to the shameful response to the assault

of Jewish students, Harvard has become dangerous for Jews,” Erdan said.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton pointed to Gay’s testimony on Tuesday before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on college campuses.

“We at Harvard reject antisemitism and denounce any trace of it on our campus or within our community,” Gay said during her testimony.

“Harvard must model what it means to preserve free expression while combating prejudice and preserving the security of our community,” Gay continued. “We are undertaking that hard, longterm work with the attention and intensity it requires.”

Outside of the screening, a group of roughly 20 demonstrators draped in Israeli flags rallied in support of Israel, chanting “Bring them home,” referring to the more than 100 Israeli hostages that remain in custody.

Rotem R. Spiegler, a 2019 graduate of Harvard Law School who grew up in Israel, said the demonstrators want people to know that “Hamas is dangerous for everyone.”

“They have one intent and it’s to destroy the Israeli country and they won’t stop,” she said. “Condemning Hamas does not mean to choose a side — it just means being on the right side of humanity.” sellers.hill@thecrimson.com john.pena@thecrimson.com

Will Harvard Sanction Unrecognized Student Group Protests?

BY J. SELLERS HILL AND CAM E. KETTLES CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

After Columbia and Brandeis sanctioned and banned pro-Palestine student groups, members of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee worried Harvard would follow suit.

In the month following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the PSC was one of the main drivers of pro-Palestine student protests on campus — and of a national media frenzy over campus activism — but the group has taken a back seat in recent weeks.

Now, the organizations spearheading Harvard’s pro-Palestine protests do not have recognition to lose.

Since early November, the PSC has not organized any on-campus protests. Instead, protests have been led by two relative newcomers, the African and African American Resistance Organization, an undergraduate-led group formed early this semester, and Harvard BDS, a group of graduate student union members who refer to themselves as an unofficial caucus of the union.

Both groups, neither officially recognized by the University, are technically not permitted to stage on-campus demonstrations. However, despite calls for disciplinary action from members of Congress and Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center, Harvard administrators have signaled hesitation to sanction the groups for their protests, which have included class interruptions.

‘We speak for those who feel they can’t speak’ The PSC has been a primary organizer of pro-Palestine campus activism for years, holding protests at major campus events and an annual “Israel Apartheid Week.”

In October, the group received widespread national backlash and faced doxxing attacks for issuing a statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

However, the group has since taken a quieter approach. It has been over a month since the PSC last held an official public protest on Harvard’s campus.

A spokesperson for the PSC, whom The Crimson granted anonymity to due to safety concerns, wrote in an emailed statement that while the organization has

hosted “education events, teachins, film screenings, creative displays, and collaborations with groups across campus” they are “thinking about how we can best maximize our bandwidth in this time.”

“We are committed to advancing our call for justice in Palestine through a range of approaches,” the statement reads.

Instead, two groups that had virtually no public presence before October have taken on the mantle of protesting. The first, AFRO, is an unrecognized undergraduate group formed for Black student activism.

At Harvard, student organizations must apply for and receive recognition before they can access resources such as space reservations, marketing materials, and funding. Without official recognition, student organizations are not technically permitted to hold protests on campus.

During the 2022-23 academic year, the PSC received approximately $1,400 from the Harvard Undergraduate Association, the College’s student governance body, tasked with disbursing funding to recognized student organizations.

Members of AFRO have been among some of the only protesters willing to speak on record at PSC-organized protests, a move that AFRO organizer Prince A. Williams ’25 said was taken to protect other organizers who face personal risks.

He also said the group never sought recognition as a student group, though the College is also not currently accepting new applications.

“We assess our own risk, and we speak for those who feel they can’t speak,” Williams, a Crimson Editorial editor, said.

The second group, Harvard BDS, is also an unrecognized group and consists of rank-andfile members of the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers. The group was initially formed in 2021 when its union first endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel.

HGSU-UAW also voted to sign two letters calling for a ceasefire and endorsing the BDS movement Nov. 16. Despite the union’s publication of an additional statement condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia, more than 30 HGSU-UAW members announced their resignation over the votes.

Harvard BDS’ first protests were specifically in response to the

Protesters with the African and African American Resistance Organization march through the Science Center during a pro-Palestine week of action.

FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

University’s decision to indefinitely relieve a first-year proctor following his involvement in a protest confrontation, which a spokesperson said they believed to be “a basic violation of our labor rights.”

While Harvard BDS is not an officially recognized working group within the union, HGSU-UAW members have legal protections for political speech that non-unionized student workers do not. A Harvard BDS spokesperson wrote in a statement that the group might ask to be officially recognized by the union later.

The National Labor Relations Board prohibits employers from disciplining or firing workers who engage in “concerted activity,” a broad category that includes discussing working conditions, circulating petitions, and most strikes.

But these activities could also apply to political protests not directly related to working conditions, like those undertaken by Harvard BDS in recent weeks.

“This is a group of workers who are getting together and discussing a social justice issue which the NLRB has clarified as protected concerted activity,” said Koby D. Ljunggren, a UAW staff organizer and former HGSU-UAW president.

Last week, the two groups jointly held a slew of events including two protests to cap a “week of action” where protesters chanted “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea.”

While organizers argue the chants aimed to advocate for Palestinian freedom, the latter chant has been specifically condemned

by University President Claudine Gay, who referred to it as “eliminationist” in a Nov. 9 email to Harvard affiliates.

The rhetoric also came under fire from Hillel, which released a statement last week calling on Gay to “hold both the individuals and organizations involved in this protest accountable, including the PSC who promoted these actions that are inconsistent with University policies.”

The email statement also asked Gay to clarify speech and protest regulations in an email to Harvard affiliates Nov. 30. The next day, College administrators, including Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana, sent such an email to undergraduate students, “writing to reaffirm that the College will continue to enforce all rules according to regular procedures.”

A Line in the Sand As pro-Palestine demonstrations have continued on campus, only one protest is confirmed to have drawn a disciplinary response, when last month, the College initiated disciplinary hearings against eight undergraduates who participated in a 24-hour occupation of University Hall.

The eight students were affiliated with Harvard Jews for Palestine, another unrecognized student group.

Though Gay has faced intense pressure from donors and, as recently as Tuesday, from members of Congress, she has continued to grant wide latitude to what speech is permitted on campus.

But the specific threshold for

what will provoke a disciplinary action remains unclear.

The clearest articulation of Gay’s line in the sand came on Tuesday, when she testified to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for a hearing about antisemitism on college campuses and faced aggressive questioning about the University’s disciplinary standards.

One line of questioning by Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) specifically addressed the University’s decision not to take disciplinary action against students involved in protests during which students interrupted classes and chanted “globalize the intifada.”

“Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard’s code of conduct?” Stefanik asked, referring to the chant, which references Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza against Israel.

Gay called the chants “thoughtless, reckless, and hateful,” but said that action would be taken only when “speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment, or intimidation.”

In Hillel’s Nov. 30 email, the organization claimed that interrupting class sessions amounted to such a violation, though University policy remains ambiguous.

According to the University’s free speech guidelines, which were linked in the Hillel email, the University does not protect speech that creates a “disruption,” which “must extend over an unreasonable period of time.”

“The definition of disruption

is any repeated or continuous action which effectively prevents members of the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the event,” read the guidelines, which were adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1990.

In the coming weeks, protesters plan to test the University’s limits further, and Gay’s administration will need to make hard decisions about what constitutes free expression and what amounts to misconduct.

But Williams — the AFRO organizer — said the rules of protest on college campuses, to the extent they exist, were made to be broken.

“Those guidelines, whether or not they’ll be put into place, undermine the whole concept of protest. And if your protest is completely accepted by the entity in which you’re protesting, it’s not very much a protest,” Williams said.

“We aren’t concerned about guidelines,” he added. sellers.hill@thecrimson.com cam.kettles@thecrimson.com

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NEWS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

9

TITLE IX

College Title IX Coordinator Exits Position TITLE IX. Former College Title IX resource coordinator Erin Clark left her role midway through the fall semester.

BY CHARLOTTE P. RITZ-JACK CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

­E

rin Clark, previously Harvard College’s Title IX resource coordinator, left her role mid-way through the fall semester.

In an email Clark wrote to the Title IX Student Advisory Board obtained by The Crimson, Clark announced the Title IX office is undergoing a staff transition process supported by the Office of Gender Equity.

She thanked the board for their commitment and encouraged students to stay active members “to have an impact on the future of college Title IX.” The Student Advisory Board, previously led by Clark, is a group of College students who provide feedback and ideas for College Title IX issues at Harvard. According to Clark’s email, Olivia Sevey and Rachel DiBella, who serve as education project manager and associate director of strategic prevention initiatives for the Office of Gender Equity, respectively, will temporarily lead the board.

The Harvard Title IX Office is home to the Harvard College’s Title IX Resource Coordinators. QUINN G. PERINI — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Clark left the role to pursue another opportunity as a civil rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Education, according to her LinkedIn. Clark did not respond to a re-

quest for comment.

Title IX coordinators work as advisers to individuals who have experienced harm or have been identified as causing harm. They can help indi-

viduals with accessing support, making a disclosure, implementing safety measures, or filing a formal complaint. There are more than 60 Title IX coordinators across the University

with each school having a set of their own.

Katherine G. O’Dair, then the dean of students, appointed Clark to the role in Sept. 2019 after Emily Miller, the previ-

ous coordinator, stepped down at the beginning of the fall 2019 semester. Before joining Harvard, Clark served as the director of Title IX coordination for the Chicago Public Schools and as the director of the Center for Awareness, Response, and Education at Northwestern University.

When she was appointed, Clark shared the Title IX resource coordinator title with Brian Libby, who joined Harvard in 2016 as the assistant director of the Office of International Education and served as a Title IX coordinator simultaneously from 2017 to 2022.

“Caysie Carter Harvey, Associate University Title IX Coordinator, is serving as the Acting Program Office for Title IX at Harvard College,” said Nicole Merhill, Director of the Office for Gender Equity and University Title IX Coordinator, in an emailed statement.

The Office for Gender Equity has yet to announce a new permanent College Title IX resource coordinator.

The office is currently recruiting two positions: a new College Title IX program officer and Title IX resource coordinator, as well as an assistant director of College Title IX. charlotte.ritz-jack@thecrimson.com

HMS FROM PAGE 1

Panel Urges Improvement to Anatomical Gift Tracking the director of Emory University School of Medicine’s body donor program; and Brandi Schmitt, the director of anatomical services at the University of California.

According to the report, the panel conducted multiple interviews, reviewed AGP documents, and visited the facilities this summer.

Harvard does not have policy specific to the AGP, per the report, nor to the use of human specimens for education and research.

In addition to recommending that the University write and implement such a policy, the panel advises AGP to regularly update its Standard Operating Procedure Manual to include information on required documentation of donor specimens, specimen tracking standards, maintenance of inventories, and training requirements. The SOPM has not been updated since 2014.

The panel recommended that the AGP regularly review its donation consent form, which was updated in 2022 for the first time since 2003. Specifically, the report advises the AGP to explain the possible uses of data and images of donated bodies, as well as the storage of that information.

The AGP receives donations from people who register their bodies for medical research by HMS prior to their deaths. Currently, the three-person AGP staff determines a donated body’s suitability for use, but they are not trained in clinical medicine and have limited training for the task of evaluating a donated body. To lighten the staff’s workload, the

panel recommends appointing a medical director to advise on donor eligibility and suitability for the AGP, as well as an anatomy laboratory technician to maintain the laboratory.

The panel also recommended changes to the AGP’s system of oversight, including the creation of a small operational committee and governing board. The committee would supervise the morgue and laboratories daily, while the governing board would meet annually to ensure longterm oversight.

Other suggestions included creating a consistent protocol for tracking and identifying cadavers throughout their educational use, perhaps through the establishment of a workstation near teaching laboratories dedicated to tracking the location changes of donor bodies and donor specimens at all times.

The report also noted that the AGP possesses a “legacy collection of skeletons and bones,” in part acquired through “unknown provenance.” Though the panel did not investigate this collection directly, it urged the Medical School to investigate the collection for any remains of Indigenous people in accordance with federal repatriation laws.

Such collections are not unusual and can be found at other medical schools throughout the U.S., the report added, often containing remains acquired through unethical practices.

“Most were purchased as medical teaching specimens in a manner that was legal at the

time but may not have been ethical,” the report reads. “The panel recommends that the skeletons and bones be assessed by experts and that any regulatory requirements like those found in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act be applied, as needed.”

Harvard has been embroiled in controversy surrounding its possession of the remains of Indigenous people, though most of the attention has gone to the University’s museums, which were found to contain the remains of more than 7,000 Indigenous people in 2022. The University has since pledged to repatriate these remains, a process that remains ongoing.

The panel recommended that Harvard establish “respectful” procedures for all human skeletal remains held in its care, from storage to disposition, given that such regulations do not currently exist. The report also suggested the program could “explore opportunities to teach about consent and past transgressions related to how human remains have historically been obtained for research and education.”

In their email, Garber and Daley wrote that the report will help “ensure that the program adheres to the highest standards and best practices.”

“An anatomical donation is among the most altruistic acts and deserves our attention and profound respect,” they wrote.

The Latest News.

The Crimson thecrimson.com

jade.lozada@thecrimson.com ammy.yuan@thecrimson.com

Harvard Public Affairs and Communications, the University’s public relations arm, is housed at 114 Mt. Auburn St. SANTIAGO A. SALDIVAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

PR Firm Aided Harvard with Israel-Hamas Messaging

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Public relations giant Edelman advised senior University officials on communications strategy related to the Israel-Hamas war after Harvard’s initial response provoked a wave of backlash, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Harvard Public Affairs and Communications, the University’s public relations arm, engaged Edelman — the largest global communications firm by revenue — to provide HPAC with external support on PR work and communications strategy.

In particular, Edelman assisted HPAC with its messaging about the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to the source.

The University faced fierce criticism over its initial statement about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that failed to directly condemn Hamas and did not address a viral and controversial student statement.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain did not deny Edelman’s account with Harvard in response to a request for comment but declined to comment on any relationships with external vendors.

Richard W. Edelman ’76, the CEO of Edelman, did not respond

to multiple requests for comment about the firm’s work for Harvard.

Harvard was engulfed in crisis after its first statement on the fighting in Israel and Gaza led some prominent donors to end their relationships with the University and one prominent member of Congress to publicly call on Harvard President Claudine Gay to resign.

University administrators, including Gay, have worked overtime over the past two months to contain the backlash and ease tensions on a bitterly divided campus, releasing eight additional “messages to the community” related to the Israel-Hamas war and its impact on Harvard.

Gay’s subsequent statements have announced new efforts to tackle antisemitism on campus, condemned Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry, reaffirmed freedom of speech, and, controversially, censured the pro-Palestine slogan “from the river to the sea.”

HPAC’s relationship with Edelman offers some insight into how the University’s public relations team has sought to ease tensions on a divided campus and repair relationships with prominent Harvard affiliates that have strongly criticized the University over its initial messaging.

Edelman is not the only external PR firm to work with HPAC

this year. Stephanie Cutter, a leading Democratic political strategist, has served as a public relations consultant to Gay since her selection as the University’s 30th president in December 2022.

While Richard Edelman did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article, he wrote about Gay’s response to the controversy in an Oct. 20 blog post on Edelman’s website titled “Why Leaders Must Speak Up.” Edelman wrote in the blog post that the initial statement from the University was “lampooned as weak and ambivalent,” before Gay issued a follow-up statement that “clarified her views” by directly condemning Hamas and distancing the University from the controversial student statement.

“In this case, it was important to establish the yellow lines for debate, then to create a context for discussion that put humanity at the core instead of politics,” Edelman wrote.

“Leaders need to move quickly, be clear, provide supporting facts, and avoid having to make multiple statements,” Edelman added. “The coming months will be trying for business and academic leaders alike as the Middle East descends into armed conflict.” miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com

10

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

EDITORIAL

DECEMBER 8, 2023

STAFF EDITORIAL

Advanced Placement, A Devil We Know IMPERFECT COURSES. Though recognize the College Board and its offerings as flawed, we still see value in their rigorous curricular option for high-school students.

­I

n a 2022 staff-editorial concerning the SAT, our Board called standardized testing “the devil we know.” In 2023, a related ghoul maintains that invidious epithet.

Due to lost revenue as a result of colleges’ shifts away from use of the SAT, the College Board has loudly advocated for the expansion of its Advanced Placement program.

The AP program offers accelerated, college-level courses to high school students and has seen widespread adoption, with one Boston school even building curricula around AP courses. Yet while the College Board rakes in almost a billion dollars in annual revenue, including millions of taxpayers’ dollars, over a third of test takers nationwide earn failing scores on AP exams.

Though we recognize the College Board and its offerings as flawed, we still see value in a rigorous curricular option for high-school students administered by a non-governmental organization. Ultimately, education can never be one-size-fits-all, and schools should individually determine what curricula serve their students best.

The College Board is certainly devilish: It’s a private organization that sets the curriculum and standards for a significant share of America’s high

school courses, and yet we hardly know if its product is effective. A 2018 paper found that AP classes have “minimal to no impacts” on students’ college outcomes, and a study from this year found that AP test takers were no more likely to enroll in college than their peers following standard curricula.

Not-so-shockingly, a research brief released by the College Board concludes that even those who earn failing scores on AP tests tend to have greater college success than their non-AP peers. But the College Board conspicuously failed to publish the full study write-up and the underlying data, sharing only the flattering results, and itself conceded that the study was not causal.

(Perhaps their researchers were not properly apprised of instrumental variable regressions, a topic omitted from the AP Statistics curriculum.)

More rigorous and transparent research must take place to justify the expansion of a program that has become so ingrained in the American educational system. We call on the College Board to release more convincing evidence that their programs genuinely prepare students for college.

Alongside this uncertainty about efficacy lies a simple concern: AP exams are expensive. Current fee waivers fail to sufficiently level the playing field.

Meanwhile, low-income students who are able to take these tests fail at disproportionate rates.

More work must be done to ensure AP classes don’t only serve the already advantaged. Harvard should continue its practice of evaluating applicants in the context of the opportunities they have

been given and not penalize applicants who do not take APs. Suffice to say, the AP system is far from perfect.

But as distrustful as we are of the College Board, we’re equally uncomfortable surrendering education to the whims of state governments. In recent years, states have attempted to politicize education — including Florida, which mounted a repugnant pressure campaign on the College Board this spring to censor parts of the AP African American Studies curriculum. In such cases, the College Board’s offerings had a greater chance of survival against the worst impulses of government leaders, whose efforts to prevent teaching about marginalized identities have succeeded at the state level, while continuing to provide robust education.

Herein lies the strength of a private organization: the ability to stake out neutral territory during partisan political wars.

Furthermore, abolishing APs would deprive many students of the benefits that those courses can provide, from the chance to enroll in challenging classes for educational enrichment to saving on tuition costs by accruing college credit early. AP courses certainly have a role to play in scaffolding a quality education system, particularly when students are encouraged to enroll out of genuine curiosity about the subject matter.

The College Board has already taken commendable steps to expand its curricular offerings. We applaud efforts to make online study material free

through partnerships with Khan Academy and hope the program expands to all AP courses. We’re similarly impressed by new offerings like AP African American Studies and hope the College Board introduces more courses that speak to the totality of world history beyond the United States and Europe.

In the end, we can only evaluate AP tests for what they are: high school courses intended to provide college-level rigor. The quality of a university applicant goes beyond the number of AP courses they’ve taken, and the quality of a school transcends the quantity of its AP offerings; increasing the number of students who take these tests is not good in and of itself.

For many students, alternatives like dual enrollment or International Baccalaureate – not to mention standard or remedial courses – may be more suited to their educational needs. And for many schools, the best investment is classes and teachers that target students who need the most educational support.

But for now, here’s hoping for reforms that can make AP courses more than just the lesser of two evils.

–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.

DISSENT

Dissent: Abolish Advanced Placement

BY LEAH R. BARON, TOMMY BARONE, MCKENNA E. MCKRELL

­E

ducation represents perhaps the highest prerogative of democratic government.

What we teach — and how — expresses our most fundamental values and, in theory, prepares us all for equal, thoughtful participation in civic life.

In this sense, decisions about the proper form of education are decisions about the proper form of democracy itself.

Today, the Editorial Board diminishes the rightful role of the public in these decisions, arguing that we must defend education by taking it away from democracy. While this is a skepticism we can understand, it’s one we cannot accept.

Setting pedagogy aside from politics to stop curricular censorship, as the Board would have us do, is a cure far worse than its ailment. Because we hold that the College Board sabotages — rather than salvages — accountability and excellence in American education, we dissent.

On its face, it is discomfiting that America has outsourced agenda-setting power for its secondary education system to a private entity.

That it has outsourced this power to the College Board — an intransparent nonprofit with hundreds of millions of dollars invested offshore and precious

little evidence that its methods work — is stunning.

Entirely unaccountable to the taxpayers whose dollars flow to it in excess of 90 million dollars per annum, the College Board has strenuously resisted publishing data on the efficacy of its Advanced Placement program. Instead, it peddles in-house confirmatory studies that one expert called “junk science” and numerous others have roundly debunked.

Today, the Board stomachs this snake oil on the basis of two central claims.

First, the Board argues that the College Board’s Advanced Placement classes merely provide students with an option for rigor, which must, of course, be good. More is more.

If only it were so simple. This blithe Cheesecake-Factory pluralism ignores that the AP program, by the Board’s admission, lacks robust evidence of efficacy. If a curricular option defines the experience of millions of American students, it can’t merely be alright — it has to be definitively better than the alternatives.

This is not merely a pedantic scruple — it is a bar the College Board has failed to demonstrate APs clear. In view of this total evidentiary insufficiency, it is shocking that we have allowed this curriculum to so profoundly reshape America’s high schools.

(Around 23,000 high schools offer at least one AP class, and more than a third of recent high school graduates have taken at least one.)

And, if we’re going to play the speculation game, we’re happy to speculate that AP pedagogy isn’t very good. If our Board’s precedents endorse anything, it’s a deep belief in the transformative power of a liberal arts education — of pedagogy that challenges you to think flexibly and critically.

APs, which by definition teach to the test, often do the opposite. We can’t endorse a curriculum that incentivizes classes to spend upward of two months studying tips for succeeding on the exam, as the New York Times reported happened in one AP Literature course. Curricula centered on high-stakes testing distort education from a journey to a game.

The Board’s second main argument is that APs standardize curricula, limiting states’ ability to censor them as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done.

Again, the evidence isn’t there. Today’s majority seems to forget that, just last semester, the Board excoriated the College Board’s neutering of AP African American Studies, a decision we heavily implied was a concession to DeSantis despite the College Board’s protests to the contrary.

Judging by the experience of AP African American Studies, if the College Board does indeed produce a national standard for curricula, it is a standard that legitimizes and propagates the very censorship the Board’s majority hopes it will prevent.

Florida and its censorial compatriots offer an-

other lesson about the College Board: States that want to censor curricula will censor curricula, APs be damned.

Florida passed legislation limiting classroom instruction on gender and sexuality even though it prevented its high schools’ psychology courses from aligning with the AP curriculum. Over a dozen states have considered similar legislation since.

Democracy needs education, and education needs democracy. We should all be deeply suspicious of the notion that private entities with little incentive to act in the public interest can deliver on fundamental obligations of government better than government can.

Sure, the AP program provides a standard. But a bad standard is worse than none at all. We should abolish it.

–Leah R. Baron ’25, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Lowell House. Tommy Barone ’25, a Crimson Editorial Comp Director, is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House.

McKenna E. McKrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Classics Concentrator in Adams House.

Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.

COLUMN

QUEER QUERIES

Courses on Identity Shouldn’t Be So Rare HARVARD CAN make empowerment and representation in its courses less exceptional.

BY AARYAN K. RAWAL

­A

t the start of each semester, I tell myself that I will do (almost) all of my readings, submit (most) of my assignments on time, and attend (some of) my lectures — or, in other words, be a (somewhat) responsible student.

At the end of each semester, I inevitably feel profound disappointment at my seeming inability to engage fully with Harvard’s opportunities.

Now, as reading period begins, I once again find myself falling short of my goals to complete work in a sustainable or timely manner.

But this go-around, my sense of inadequacy is more complicated: Atop my usual habit of comparing my work ethic to that of my peers, I feel as though I have wasted a rare opportunity to enjoy academic inclusion.

I am the product of a Southern public school system defined by censorship: textbooks in elementary school told me that the Civil War was about states’ rights; my middle school history teacher justified Japanese internment camps; my high school English teachers feared provoking the ire of an increasingly active book-banning movement.

It was thus energizing to have the opportunity to take two courses this semester that centered my community: Gov 94TL, “Asian American Politics” with professor Taeku Lee, and DPI 376, “Queer Nation: LGBTQ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States” with lecturer Timothy P. McCarthy ’93.

For the first time in my Harvard experience,

I partook in discussions of politics and policy without feeling as if they were abstracted into being identity-blind.

And transformative they were: I was excited to go to class, complete readings, and attend office hours. Indeed, with dedicated peers and deeply committed instructors, intentionally honing in on oft-neglected communities in academia allowed me to understand that my concentration did not have to confine itself to the ivory tower, but could instead address the daily experiences of my communities.

In short, I experienced the power of inclusion within academia.

Of course, life got in the way: I missed chunks of this semester as I admitted myself into the psych ward. Naturally, my engagement with my courses fell off.

I tried to be graceful with myself and to acknowledge that I was prioritizing my wellbeing — I told myself there would be further opportunities to engage in academic work grounded in pieces of my identity.

But Harvard is not a beacon of inclusive scholarship.

“Asian American Politics,” for example, was only possible because Professor Lee came to Harvard as part of a recent effort to hire scholars studying ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration. Meanwhile, “Queer Nation” is a course primarily targeted at graduate students, deterring undergraduate enrollment.

My awareness of this dynamic led me to, unsuccessfully, attempt to attend a “Queer Nation” lecture before checking myself into the

hospital in October.

In hindsight, I am ashamed that I prioritized a class over my own life. Truthfully, though, I understand why I did: Representation provided meaning to my Harvard education; it re-invigorated my intellectual passions. I hoped to endure in those rare spaces that affirmed my identity in their academic pursuits.

Of course, Harvard can make empowerment and representation in its courses less exceptional; the University can preserve and nourish affirming spaces through more active institutional support.

An Ethnic Studies concentration and fullfledged Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department with tenure-track positions, for example, can provide scholars with the resources and structural stability needed to craft interdisciplinary courses that resist historical exclusion. Moreover, existing departments should generate courses that focus on the marginalized — Professor Lee’s course, for example, is listed under the Government department.

I recognize that empowering curricula is not entirely inaccessible at Harvard. There are still other courses to take. Still, I wish that courses that allow us to study our identity could simply be a class, rather than a rare commodity that we feel that we can waste.

– Aaryan K. Rawal ’26 is a Government concentrator in Eliot House. Their column, “Queer Queries,” runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays.

Crack into Opinions!

EDITORIAL 11

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

DECEMBER 8, 2023

OP-ED

LETTER

Harvard Must Find Its Moral Clarity

To The Editor: Don’t Platform Stefanik’s Inflammatory Press Release

BY ELISE M. STEFANIK

­D

uring the American Revolution, America’s colleges served as bastions of moral clarity, leveraging the teachings of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to bolster America’s fight for freedom and democracy.

Harvard took part in shaping this revolutionary fervor. General George Washington even quartered his troops in the historic Massachusetts and Hollis Halls.

Today, Harvard University has been so corrupted by its apparent desperation to appease the far-left that its moral compass has been long forgotten. It is profoundly disappointing to see Harvard University, a prestigious institution which we care so deeply about, devolve from fostering an age of American independence into an institution that enables abhorrent antisemitism.

On Oct. 7, Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and brutally murdered more than 1,000 people, leading to the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists massacred concertgoers, raped women, barbarically burned people alive, beheaded babies, and kidnapped more than 200 innocent men, women, and children, many of whom are still being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

As the free world watched in horror at the grotesque Hamas attack, evil antisemitism erupted on America’s college campuses. Following the attack, more than 30 Harvard student organizations co-signed a public statement in response to Hamas’ attack claiming that Israel was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” These Harvard student groups effectively blamed Israel for the unimaginable atrocities that Hamas inflicted on Israeli civilians.

While this statement is sickening and multiple groups have since retracted their signatures, what is worse is the failure of Harvard’s leadership to immediately condemn the state-

ment. Harvard’s silence created a vacuum in which heinous antisemitism echoes loudly.

To fill this void, I led my fellow Harvard alumni on Capitol Hill in a letter condemning the statement and demanding that University President Claudine Gay denounce antisemitism. Yet throughout President Claudine Gay’s numerous statements at this point, she has never condemned the Harvard student organizations; instead, she has declared that Harvard is committed to creating an environment that fosters free speech and open dialogue.

Harvard alumni and students are well aware that the University stifles free speech; recently, Harvard ranked dead last in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s college free speech rankings. Strikingly, in multiple of President Claudine Gay’s remarks responding to the Israel-Hamas war, she has stressed Harvard’s commitment to freedom of speech, even saying, “It’s in the exercise of our freedom to speak that we reveal our characters. And we reveal the character of our institution.”

President Claudine Gay has certainly revealed the lack of character of Harvard as an institution — coupled with Harvard’s abysmal record of protecting free speech, the willingness of Harvard University to now vehemently defend free speech when that speech calls for the death of Jews and the eradication of Israel is absolutely revelatory in Harvard’s unacceptable lack of moral clarity.

This rot of antisemitism is not only plaguing Harvard University but is proliferating on campuses all over the country. While these universities desperately attempt to appease the far-left through hiring an army of diversity, equity, and inclusion officers, a professor at Cornell University claimed that Hamas’ murdering and hostage taking on Oct. 7 made him feel exhilarated. A group of students at George Washington University projected “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a phrase calling for the eradication of the state of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people.

The plague of antisemitism on our college campuses is rotting out these institutions, and it must be stopped.

Universities across America receive billions of taxpayer dollars through federal grants, contracts, and tax incentives. It is unacceptable, and frankly un-American, that taxpayer dollars are supporting Harvard professors — even department chairs — and students who are defending the phrase, “from the river to the sea,” which implies genocidal elimination of the Jewish state. This is why I am working to ban federal funds from any university that enables antisemitism to proliferate on their campus.

House Republicans will investigate how universities like Harvard have devolved from helping lead our nation in the fight for independence to promulgating terrorist apologists. To ensure Jewish students are able to attend school in a safe environment, I will work in Congress to demand that America’s colleges and universities implement institutional changes to rid antisemitism from their campuses.

As a senior member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the United States Congress, and a Harvard alumna, I will hold President Claudine Gay accountable when she is under oath today for her responsibility in allowing antisemitism to proliferate on Harvard’s campus and continue to call for her resignation.

As a Harvard alumna, I believe we must demand that the most well-recognized and preeminent higher education institution in the world rediscover its moral clarity and eliminate antisemitism from its campus.

–Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) represents New York’s 21st District in the House of Representatives, serves as the House Republican Conference Chair, and is a senior member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

OP-ED

Dear President Gay, Don’t Forget About Us

BY MAHMOUD M. AL-THABATA

­T

oday, University President Claudine Gay is testifying in front of Congress about antisemitism on college campuses.

As she gives her remarks, President Gay must not forget the ongoing climate of fear and intimidation facing Harvard’s Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities since the outbreak of war and what many scholars and lawyers have called a genocide in Gaza.

On Nov. 1, hedge fund billionaire Bill A. Ackman ’88 spoke at the Jewish Leaders Forum.

The event was organized by Harvard Chabad and took place following his calls for the mass doxxing of pro-Palestinian students whose organizations co-signed a statement in response to the Oct. 7 attacks.

Ackman’s invitation to campus was only one of the many incidents of Harvard’s neglect of students’ safety concerns.

In the same week that Ackman and other prominent figures lambasted pro-Palestinian students on social media, I saw the faces and names of my peers plastered on a truck driving around campus, each accompanied by the title of “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The truck was funded by Accuracy in Media, a conservative advocacy group. According to an interview with two doxxed students, the majority of those individuals were Black and brown.

It took Harvard almost two weeks just to privately email affected students about a task force for doxxed students. By that point, students had faced death threats and found their personal information circulated online. Soon after, Accuracy in Media sent the truck to some of the students’ hometowns. Harvard’s failure to treat this incident with the urgency it deserved endangered pro-Palestinian students and promoted prejudice on campus.

A significant increase in antisemitic hate crimes in the United States has accompanied these targeted attacks on pro-Palestinian stu-

dents. In response to these heinous attacks on the Jewish community, Harvard created an antisemitism advisory group.

The administration’s move is commendable and warranted — and that same institutional support should also be extended to Muslims and Arabs on campus whose communities have faced a similar upsurge in Islamophobic, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism: The Council on American-Islamic Relations documented an increase in Islamophobic incidents and hate crimes in the U.S. of more than 180 percent between Oct. 7 and Oct. 24. The director of research and advocacy of that organization noted that this surging hate has been born out of rhetoric particularly targeting Palestinian communities.

Why is Harvard refusing to extend the same valuable institutional resource it provides to Jewish students to their Arab and Muslim peers? The administration’s inadequate response tells me that I, as a Palestinian, do not meet the standards for safety or support.

The lack of action taken by our university has potentially dangerous implications in light of recent anti-Arab and Islamophobic attacks on other college campuses.

At Stanford University, campus police are investigating allegations that a student wearing a shirt with the Syrian city of Damascus written in Arabic on it was struck by a car, the driver of which yelled, “Fuck you people.” At George Washington University, students reported instances of strangers ripping hijabs from the heads of Muslim students. And at Yale University, a message declaring “Death to Palestine” was found written on a whiteboard inside of a student dorm building.

On Nov. 25, this bigotry turned into bullets.

That day, three Palestinian college students in Vermont were shot while speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs, traditional Palestinian scarves. That attack on Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford University; and

Don’t Be a Turkey, Submit an Op-Ed Today!

Tahseen Ali Ahmed, a student at Trinity University, should remind the nation of the consequences of ignoring anti-Palestinian racism.

These racist attacks are not isolated incidents. As Hisham, who was left paralyzed from the chest down by the assault, bravely noted in a statement, he is “but one casualty in this much wider conflict” against Palestinians globally, whether in the United States or in Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Harvard’s failure to adequately respond to the scale of this crisis leaves its Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students to wonder, “Are we next?”

Our university, like many of its peers, has already failed these members of our community by not acting faster. Only by leading the way with lasting action can Harvard win back our trust and set a standard for universities nationwide.

This is what President Gay must have in mind when she testifies before Congress today.

But her words in front of the government are not enough.

Whether by divesting its nearly $200 million in investments tied to Israeli settlements in Palestine; creating an advisory committee to tackle Islamophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism; reinstating an evicted pro-Palestinian proctor; or extending an invitation to Palestinian students to meet with President Claudine Gay, Harvard must do more to protect us on our own campus.

These acts are not just for me, but for Hisham and other Palestinians on college campuses who are deeply worried for their safety. For the people of Gaza gasping for help and calling for a permanent ceasefire. For every member of the Harvard community in need of assurance that Islamophobia, anti-Arab sentiment, and all forms of hate have no place on this campus. For humanity.

–Mahmoud M. Al-Thabata ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Holworthy Hall.

BY GUILLERMO S. HAVA

­F

or almost two months now, The Harvard Crimson Editorial Board has tirelessly upheld journalistic standards by publishing an ideologically diverse set of perspectives on the tragic events in Israel and Palestine. Their jobs are never easy and oft thankless, and I have nothing but admiration and respect for their work.

In publishing the inflammatory rambles of Representative Elise M. Stefanik ’06, however, The Crimson erred gravely.

Stefanik’s propaganda dispatch-turned opinion piece is riddled with incendiary inaccuracies and mischaracterizations befitting of her general political trajectory but unbecoming of our student newspaper.

Platforming them is a disservice to our community, the historical record, and the values journalists hold.

Upon publication, Stefanik’s piece featured at least one crude factual error, citing a since-corrected civilian death toll of more than 1,000 on Oct. 7 (the true number is closer to 850, per a revision from Israeli officials).

It also parroted a controversial claim that Hamas “beheaded babies” — that is, cut their heads off — referring to a source that could not confirm whether decapitation was the cause of death.

This allegation is currently deemed unverifiable by multiple sources absent further evidence, including Snopes and the Washington Post — as well as, bizarrely, a CNN article The Crimson originally hyperlinked to, entitled “Israeli official says government cannot confirm babies were beheaded in Hamas attack.”

There is little reason to exaggerate heinous acts to make them appear more heinous; there is no excuse for a reputable newspaper to publicize those who do so.

On campus matters, too, Stefanik’s claims and The Crimson’s decision to publish them must be questioned. For The Crimson to allow Stefanik to write that the University has “vehemently defended free speech when that speech calls for the death of Jews,” while hyperlinking to articles about “from the river to the sea,” borders on malpractice.

Firstly, because the University has not “defended” the hyperlinked speech. Just because students have not been suspended or organizations disbanded does not mean that their speech has been defended: University President Claudine Gay has staunchly condemned such chants, much to the chagrin of organizers. Suggesting otherwise hours before Gay enters a second coming of the House Un-American Activities Committee is blatantly irresponsible.

Secondly, and crucially, because characterizing “from the river to the sea” as a chant calling “for the death of the Jews” is absurd: It ignores the chant’s history and meaning; the intent and values of organizers who chant it, including Jewish ones; and the explicit opposition to violence against civilians and all discrimination that has been voiced repeatedly by pro-Palestinian organizers on campus. It distorts campus history to misrepresent vigils as pogroms, protests as hateful marches, and immortalizes it all on the local paper of record.

That Stefanik attached her byline to such lie-ridden gibberish is unsurprising. The far-right Republican made a dubious name for herself by staunchly refusing to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election even after the Jan. 6 attack; she has promoted the violently antisemitic and racist “great replacement” theory and dabbled in QAnon rhetoric like “pedo grifters.”

Stefanik, like Elon Musk, belongs to a select club of peddlers of ethnonationalist authoritarianism who, despite regularly flirting with antisemitism, have found public redemption in attacking pro-Palestinian organizers. She might suggestively deride George Soros, or endorse a candidate who in 2021 called Hitler “the kind of leader we need today” — but at least she’ll stand up to college kids!

While such opportunistic hypocrisy is to be expected from Stefanik, it remains jarring that The Crimson would dignify a barely-passing excuse for a fundraising email with one of its coveted opinion slots, as if the congresswoman was an elucidating voice, a decent writer, or an expert of any sort in anything pertinent to current debates.

The Editorial Board once described Stefanik as set on a “relentless pursuit of political influence at a glaring cost to morality” and “the worst we could be.” We would do well to heed our own advice.

–Guillermo S. Hava ’23-’24, a former Crimson Editorial Chair, is a Government and Philosophy concentrator in Winthrop House. He joined the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee as an organizer in the fall of 2023.

12

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

METRO

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Allstonians Criticize ERC Construction SIX MONTHS into construction of Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus, residents criticized a lack of communication and disruptive construction.

BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND ARAN SONNAD-JOSHI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­W

ith construction on the first phase of Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus entering its sixth month, Allston residents voiced criticisms of the development and the impact it will have on the neighborhood.

Construction on Phase A of Harvard’s campus expansion began in late June after the Boston Planning and Development Agency unanimously approved the development plan in July 2022. The approval came just two days after a breakthrough agreement between Harvard and Boston officials to guarantee that 25 percent of housing created as part of the development would be affordable.

But residents continue to have reservations about the impact the development will have on housing prices, transit infrastructure, and broader changes to the neighborhood character — a concern that has become particularly visible to residents as large construction vehicles and towering cranes have come to inhabit Allston’s streets and skies.

Allston Civic Association President Anthony D’Isidoro said construction trucks have not been keeping to agreed-upon routes that were intended to minimize disruption to residents.

“There’s always the complaints about construction trucks being on streets that they shouldn’t be on because there were approved routes,” D’Isidoro said. “They just did a big concrete pour, but then so many hundreds

Construction of the first phase of Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus, located in Allston, began in June. EMMA A. LUCAS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

of trucks were involved.”

University spokesperson Amy Kamosa and ERC developer Tishman Speyer did not respond to requests for comment on complaints by local residents.

Allston resident Aji A. Sjamsu said the trucks have been inconvenient and brought noise to the area.

“It makes things more inconvenient for just randomly getting from one place to another within my neighborhood,” he said. “My dog is kind of easily spooked. So he doesn’t like to walk near the loud vehicles.”

Alphonse Anzalpi, who has lived in Allston for nearly seven decades, said the cranes rising over the ERC construction site and other developments in the neighborhood were an eyesore.

“It totally ruined a beautiful neighborhood that was all filled

with families,” Anzalpi said of Harvard’s expansion into Allston.

“It’s all students. People don’t care about the properties anymore because they’re getting big money for the rent.”

“I think it stinks what they did to our neighborhood, and they keep growing and the rats keep coming,” he added.

Located just beside the Harvard Science and Engineering Complex, the 900,000-squarefoot development is set to consist of residential space, offices, labs, a hotel and conference center, and retail and restaurant areas, per developer Tishman Speyer.

Harvard owns roughly a third of Allston, much of that land being vacant parking lots and unused buildings. The University has committed to using some of this land to provide housing for

residents and has also committed $25 million to an affordable housing fund for Allston and Brighton.

While the ERC will repurpose vacant parking lots and offer income-restricted housing options, some Allston residents have expressed concerns about their role in shaping outcomes relating to the ERC and their neighborhood.

For some residents, like Kevin M. Carragee, the co-president of Brighton’s Hobart Park Neighborhood Association, Harvard’s efforts to engage in conversations with Allston-Brighton residents have felt largely superficial.

“Have there been many meetings? Oh, my God, yes,” Carragee said. “But, you know, in terms of substantive dialogue, where the University shows real substantive capacity to modify its plans in line with community needs and

community desires, I still think there’s a gap.”

Brian Burke, a business owner and resident who has lived in Allston for 20 years, said he has also experienced difficulties communicating with Harvard and the developers.

“They don’t return calls,” Burke said. “I call them with ideas or suggestions or things around here.”

Harvard’s commitment to build 25 percent affordable housing in Phase A of the ERC — nearly twice what Boston requires as part of its Inclusionary Housing Policy — has done little to allay resident concerns about the ERC’s impact on already-high rents in the neighborhood.

“They take everything off the market,” Burke said of Harvard’s property purchases. “They’re

raising up the rates for all the rents around the area. Regular people can’t live here anymore.

There was an Irish neighborhood at one time. It’s gone.”

Harvard and Tishman Speyer had initially proposed making 17 percent of the housing units in Phase A affordable and 20 percent of those in Phase B — though efforts by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 and her administration led the developers to increase that guarantee.

“Pressure from the Wu administration raised that number,” Carragee said. “It was unfortunate that it took so long for Harvard to make those moves, and it only made those moves because of opposition from the community, and that strikes me as a contradiction to the social justice mission at the university.”

According to D’Isidoro, the agreement is a step in the right direction — though he said Harvard still needed to do more to earn residents’ trust.

“It’s a work in progress,” D’Isidoro said. “There’s more mutual respect and a little bit more trust between the parties than there has been in the past but I also know that that could, that can be very soft in the sense of, you know, what’s coming in the future.”

Anna Leslie, the director of the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative, said she believes the ERC has the potential to greatly benefit the surrounding area.

“The benefits could be affordable, accessible, quality housing,” Leslie said. “For families, the benefits could be a much more efficient and reliable transportation system. The benefits could be many more locally sourced jobs within a 15-minute commute.”

“I think that’s entirely up to the people at the table,” she added. “The bigger challenge is that there are people who don’t know they need to be at the table or don’t want to be at the table.”

Students Organize Blood Drive with Mass General Bloodmobile

BY LOUIS-FRANCOIS P. BELANGER NICOLE L. GUO AND DARCY G. LIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to determine appropriate reparations for the descendents of enslaved people during a Monday meeting.THOMAS MAISONNEUVE— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Cambridge Creates American Freedmen Commission

BY JINA H. CHOE CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Cambridge City Council unanimously voted to create the American Freedmen Commission, a new city department that will explore historic and ongoing harms to the descendants of enslaved people and determine appropriate reparations, during a Monday meeting.

“As a city that strives so often to be a model for other cities and towns across Massachusetts but also in the country, we are taking a bold step,” said Councilor E. Denise Simmons. The vote was met with applause from the public gallery.

The commission will work with the city manager and other city officials to assess “historical, systematic, and ongoing harms done to American Freedmen by the State.”

According to the ordinance, the commission must have a minimum of five members and may have up to fifteen, and at least 85 percent of the members must identify as “American Freedmen” — the descendants of individuals who were freed from enslavement in the U.S. “This is the easy part because the hard work is yet to come, but I know we’re all up for it,” Sim-

mons said.

The Council also voted 7-2 to adopt an order for submitting a home rule petition to the state to further increase fines on vehicles that are not moved for street cleaning days following a report from City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 on the 2023 Street Cleaning Pilot.

Under the pilot, launched in April, vehicles that are not moved for street cleaning are no longer towed and instead are ticketed $50 — an increase from the original $30 ticket. Councilor Burhan Azeem said in an April interview with NBC Boston that the objective of the change was to “reduce the financial burden on residents” by eliminating towing.

Councilors Simmons and Paul F. Toner voted against the order at the meeting.

Simmons said she supports increasing the rate of street cleaning. She also called for improving resident outreach about upcoming street cleaning days.

“All people know is they don’t get towed and I think it’s important to say why we stopped doing it, the importance of moving your car, and just really engage the community far more than we have,” she said.

In a 5-4 vote, the Council also passed a Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance amendment

that would require new properties to achieve net zero emissions by 2030 — as opposed to an original goal of 2050 — to a second reading after a lengthy discussion.

BEUDO requires commercial buildings to report their water and energy usage. In July, the Council passed an amendment to BEUDO requiring large buildings to achieve net zero emissions by 2035 or pay a compliance fee.

When asked on his position, City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 said he applauds “the good intentions of this amendment,” but said he believes “that ultimately, it’s not fantastic policy,” “We’ve now spent months debating this amendment, which feels like it is incrementally more aggressive, but actually technically very difficult to implement,” Huang said. “And meanwhile, our internal team has had much less bandwidth to develop the ultimate regulations and implementation details to make BEUDO successful.”

In response to Huang, Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan said it is “unacceptable from a climate science point of view” to give new buildings “a pass” until 2050.

The Council will reconvene Dec. 11 for their next meeting. jina.choe@thecrimson.com

In response to the ongoing nationwide blood shortage, the Harvard Undergraduate Premedical Society held a blood drive in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital on Tuesday.

MGH’s bloodmobile collected donations in the Littauer Center parking lot. This is the fourth blood drive organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Premedical Society, which has previously cooperated with the MGH as well as the American Red Cross to organize blood drives.

For Tuesday’s drive, donors booked appointments online and donations were taken in the MGH bloodmobile.

Afterward, they were sent off with a sugary treat.

Organizers anticipated more than 60 donors based on signups, but turnout proved to be lower than expected due to no-shows and deferrals in light of inclement weather, impending finals,

and failure to meet donor requirements.

“It’s cold today, maybe people don’t want to be out,” said Aiden J. Taylor ’26, executive volunteer director of the HUPS. Nonetheless, the MGH nurse on duty, Diane F. Mills, who has been working at MGH’s blood donor center for 10 years, said she was ultimately pleased by the day’s final donor count.

“There were a great amount of people on the schedule. There’s always a few no-shows, which is normal,” she said. “But overall, it’s been a good turnout.”

Taylor described the value of putting students’ pre-medical curriculum into action.

“A lot of times we’re in clubs or activities that we’re just talking about things,” Taylor said. “We thought, ‘What if we actually put people into service serving people, helping to save lives even before medical school?’”

He explained that these events serve an additional function — pre-professional exposure — providing aspiring physicians in HUPS with an “opportunity to engage with patients” in “a some-

what clinical environment.”

Haley A. Lifrieri ’24, a Crimson Editorial editor, said rising international need motivated her to take action by donating blood at the drive, encouraging others to do the same.

“I just think — seeing a lot of humanitarian crises that are going on in the world right now — it’s hard to just sit back and watch it go on,” Lifrieri said. “I would strongly encourage you to consider it, especially if it takes 15 to 20 minutes out of your day and you’re healthy and well enough to, it can mean a world of difference to someone else.”

“It doesn’t hurt to feel good about helping other people,” she added.

Mills described the importance of blood donations for saving lives in critical situations.

“It’s so important because people have illnesses that sometimes require blood transfusions. They also have accidents, or they have had a traumatic injury, where they need blood to stay alive. And that’s really the only thing that might keep them alive,” she said.

“It’s a life-saving therapy.”

Massachusetts General Hospital’s bloodmobile collected blood in the parking lot of Littauer Center during a drive organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Premedical Society. CORY K. GORCZYCKI — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

13

COURTESY OF ANYA L. HENRY AND ALISA S. REGASSA

VANITY

CLOSEOUTS: The Curious Case of No Chairs

BY ANYA L. HENRY AND ALISA S. REGASSA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

A

t 5:59 p.m. EST in a brick building on the corner of Plympton Street, compers, staff writers, and the 151st executive Crimson Arts board flowed in and out of the Sanctum — ready to fight to the death for the chance to cover something in a meaningful way for a change. Clad in freshly delivered, Canva-designed CrimArts crewnecks, the writers put down their tote bags in search of a seat.

However, they were shocked at the sight that awaited them: The room, while filled with Trader Joe’s boxed wine and ghost pepper chips, had no chairs.

The ensuing investigation by The Crimson unearthed a multilayered controversy within the semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization better known by their moniker ‘CrimArts.’

In an interview with The Harvard Crimson, one film executive on scene, Brady M. Connolly ’25, spoke about the disappearance of said chairs. Donning a Patriots jersey in support of his fellow Brady — Tom — Brady was sitting on the ledge by the window when he screamed; “If I loaded a game on my computer right now,

I would lose everything.”

He seemed to be referring to the cold draft wafting around the room while his trusty MacBook Air wheezed in exhaustion on the ground, overwhelmed by the pressure of, yet again, editing Film’s slides last minute.

When asked what could have led to the lack of seated arrangements, Connolly was uncertain: “Refresh! Refresh!” he begged, skillfully deflecting the matter at hand.

The Crimson next confronted an anonymous staff writer for her opinion on the debacle.

“Brady ran the marathon?

That’s so unexpected,” she said.

It was at this point that the plot thickened.

“Now I’m revoking your Crimson email address, you idiot. Have fun in prison!” responded Connolly, scurrying into the night to rewatch “80 for Brady” for the umpteenth time.

“The Crimson’s gone soft. Literally,” commented routinely-toe-losing music executive Jen A. Hughes ’24. Not one to hold her tongue, she quickly confirmed for any confused readers; “I still hate women!”

Her co-exec, Anna No Middle Initial Moiseieva ’25 seemed bothered but unsurprised by Hughes’s appraisal. When asked for comment she only said; “People have papers due. I am people.”

On the topic of people allegedly having things, recently returned from “being in Miami” InDesign EAL (the acronym’s derivation remains contested), Zachary J. Lech ’24, disagreed.

“Nothing is mine. I don’t believe in property,” he replied. To which Moiseieva responded: “How very Marx of you.”

Suddenly, a loud ruckus erupted in the back of the room. “Your straw is naked to the elements… how much can you really care about cleanliness?” remarked Millie Mae Healy ’24, a fellow unseated exec. Clutching an anatomically accurate crocheted birthing doll, Healy, albeit a bit odd, was not the culprit.

It was at this point that another suspect appeared on the scene.

Thirty-minutes late due to “walking from the quad,” Charles W. McCormick ’24 came in with a suspiciously warm to-go container of buffalo mac-n-cheese.

When questioned about his tardiness and culpability, McCormick wasn’t very forthcoming.

“I’m going to say something unhinged… [REDACTED]!” While The Crimson rarely keeps things off the record, our commitment to witness protection knows no limit. McCormick, despite his suspiciously entrancing blue eyes and penchant for being down for whatever, could not be found responsible.

Unsure where to go from here, the chairs quickly remembered the most confrontational member of their board. With a penchant for getting into fights on X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — it would not be unreasonable for Samantha H. Chung’s (’25) anger to escape the virtual landscape. However, like the roads that came before, this presented another dead end.

Despite being nicknamed, “Killa,” Chung’s fanfiction-inspired ‘I can fix him’ tendencies remained her only discretion.

Fed up with the state of their investigation, the chairs were left with no choice but to investigate the rest of the building for clues.

As always, News was talking.

Someone in the chairs’ direct line of command was left speechless by the recent events. All the advice they could offer was summed up in one sentence: “Do you guys have access to the style guide?”

As the designated proofers for the Arts board, the chairs were confused. Was this simply a case of oversight or a more nefarious deflection?

After noticing that their roommates, FM, were no longer proofing in the communal living space, the Chairs sought refuge in the Arts office. With the door ajar, Henry and Regassa were shocked to hear whispers from the newsroom.

“I’ll take care of Sellers.”

On this ominous note, Arts Chairs and soon to be Dinos Alisa S. Regassa ’24 and Anya L. Henry ’24 sat down — not literally — for an interview with The Harvard Crimson to discuss this peculiar case of missing chairs. *** ASR: It’s been a tough year. They always tell you to ‘do a cover if you want to do actual journalism.’ ‘No em-dashes allowed’ and all that. I mean I get it, admin is like a beast that must be tamed: Once you conquer it, it recognizes you as its master. But you have to remember that he was only seven when ‘Gangnam Style’ came out.

ALH: Psy?!

ASR: What I’m trying to say is that no one ever sits you down and tells you what you want to know. Like does arts ever publish things in a meaningful way? Who is Ryan S. Kim? THC: Who stole the chairs from the chairs?

ALH: Exactly. It’s oddly on the nose, huh? We start the year off with no chairs, end with no chairs. When will we not have to drag bean bags and futons up these janky stairs for our meetings? I mean, I don’t mind

the workout but I don’t know if our pitch meetings need to see my bicep pump. On that note — ASR: We just want to thank our writers for writing as much as they did. Our compers for growing as much as they have. Our execs for fact-checking as hard as they do. They are the reason we do this in the first place. To see them smile, jest, and become better writers by the minute. And for the free concerts, of course.

ALH: It sounds cheesy, but Arts has always been and will always be about the people. Where else can I watch Alisa brag about using Firefox or get heated over Taylor Swift’s unjustifiable popularity? For the first time in three years, our Monday evenings will be free — and honestly, I’m kind of sad about it. Thanks for everything, everyone. Don’t miss us too much — we’ll probably be back soon. *** ASR: “You and me, rave when?”

ALH: “You and me, rave whenever.” *** Artsluv, Alisa S. Regassa and Anya L. Henry

‘Under Control/Utter Chaos’: A Thought-Provoking Satire

BY SAMANTHA H. CHUNG CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

On March 31, 2022, Harvard students voted to dissolve the Undergraduate Council, which had served as the College’s student government for 40 years, after months of campaign controversy and collegiate chaos. Now almost two years since the turbulent event, the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s “Under Control/Utter Chaos” took the stage at the Loeb Ex Theater from Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, offering the uninitiated a fictionalized account of 2022’s UC drama.

Written by Chinyere S.C. “C.J.” Obasi ’24, and co-directed by Obasi and Texaco U.M. Texeira-Ramos ’26, “Under Control/Utter Chaos” is a three-act play that follows a group of students at an unnamed university (simply called “the College”) who find themselves involved in a rapidly unfolding scandal: the election to elect the new president of — and later, abolish — the UC. The play is a satire so wildly out there that it’s hard to believe it exists. And yet, the show that “started out as a joke” is

a hilarious, introspective, and ultimately touching work that speaks to the Harvard experience on a deeply relatable level.

All 14 members of the play’s ensemble cast gave remarkable performances, each giving their character a depth that made even the satirical sympathetic. Kai C.W. Lewis ’27 stood out as Richard Lee, the underdog candidate who runs his campaign on the promise to dissolve the UC. Lewis’s empathetic performance of the UC’s final president is that of a seasoned actor. Also exceptional were Caron S. Kim ’24, who played the show’s grandiose Narrator, and Julia K. Grullon ’24, who skillfully portrayed the dual (and wildly different) roles of Anna and Helen.

Obasi’s script and the performances that elevate it are utterly superb. The show is riotously funny when irreverence is called for, and sober when it needs to be.

Multiple scenes run side by side, with characters’ dialogue matching up as they speak shared sentences with significant relevance to the plot. This clever technique of overlapping dialogue draws

clear parallels between characters and scenes, expertly emphasizing how even though the UC scandal drew those involved into a tangled web of dorm-room conversations, social media schemes, and mistrust, they might not have been so different as they may have thought.

The play also leans into the fact that much of its audience is made up of Harvard students who are already familiar with the story of the UC’s downfall. Moments of recognition and jabs at university administration evoke laughs and cheers.

Campus publications and Houses are given fictional names — The Crimson is “The Daily,” The Independent is “The Alternative,” and so on. “Under Control/Utter Chaos” is a play for Harvard students and

by Harvard students, which allows the show to display an intimate understanding of its student audience, cast, and creative team.

The production design of “Under Control/Utter Chaos” works well to set the tone of each scene.

The show’s intricate lighting, designed by Dora Ivkovich ’24, makes extensive use of spotlights

to visually highlight characters’ moments of loneliness or panic. The scenic design by Cam Parsons Muniz ’25 is also effective, using a minimalist set to cleverly place scenes in dorm rooms, a tennis court, and even a mock courthouse.

More than a few audience members walking into the Loeb Experimental Theater to see “Under Control/Utter Chaos” have likely questioned the ethics of putting on such a play. The show knows this, and it takes the moral gray areas of its existence in stride. The play’s second act ventures into meta-commentary on satire, including multiple scenes in which Richard confronts the Narrator about her — or, the playwright’s — motivations for telling this story. She never gives a straight answer. “Under Control/Utter Chaos” is a quietly uncomfortable story to watch — and, as Richard points out, to act out — which proves its artistic brilliance. What begins as a comedic take on an infamous piece of Harvard history evolves into a meditation on the moral responsibilities of theatre itself.

The third act takes these gestures at self-reference and runs with them, driving the show to a resounding finish. Actors shed their previous roles to step into entirely new ones, the fourth wall is broken multiple times, and the audience is never quite sure what they’re watching until the lights dim for the last time. It’s a bold, successful final twist in a play whose ending is believed by the audience to be already known.

“Under Control/Utter Chaos” is a triumph. It’s a thought-provoking satire that forces the audience to sit with uncomfortable feelings.

It masters the tricky balance of portraying the pointless intensity of student government drama alongside serious topics such as racism and hate speech. And ultimately, it’s a tribute to the Harvard experience — in the strangest way possible. samantha.chung@thecrimson.com

COURTESY OF TEXACO TEXEIRA-RAMOS AND JEREMIE LOZIER

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

ARTS

14

DECEMBER 8, 2023

FILM

‘Poor Things’ Review: A Weirdly Wonderful Modern Frankenstien COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES, COURTESY OF EPK.TV, AND ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA

BY DANIEL P. PINCKNEY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

T

he latest feature from director Yorgos Lanthimos wears its literary influences with pride. The film is a candy-colored, steampunk inflected adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same name — itself a reinterpretation of “Frankenstein” — and invites audiences to grow up alongside its “monster,” Bella Baxter, played by the extraordinary Emma Stone.

As an unabashedly bizarre and racy moviegoing experience, the movie will likely play well among critics, but may struggle to garner broader mass appeal. Still, Lanthimos’s creative and incisive critique of the human condition deserves praise.

The film’s emotional and thematic exploration of humanity depends a lot on Lanthimos’s use of color. After an opening shot drenched in blue, the first act of the film is shot in black and white.

This sense of dullness perfectly reflects Bella’s sheltered life, kept from the world by her father-creator, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). When color roars back into the film, Bella fittingly es-

capes into the real world. Flowing first through the pastel tones of a whimsical interpretation of Lisbon, the film becomes visually and thematically darker as Bella absorbs the complexities of the world.

Alongside these creative uses of color, Lanthimos also experiments with different shooting styles. He captures many scenes through a wide-angle lens, suggesting the overwhelming naïveté that animates Bella. As she explores the world with wide-eyed fervor, the audience is invited to experience that alongside her. Other times, his compositions seem ripped straight from the stage, with stationary wide shots that capture the full physicality of characters and lend a theatrical air to the film and its performances.

Those performances and the characters they bring to life elevate the film above just an eccentric watch. Emma Stone in particular gives an electrifying performance. Somehow convincingly playing both a child and a woman simultaneously, Stone inhabits the joys and pains of growing up with nuanced emotional depth and convincing physicality. This theatrical dexterity gives her another

legitimate shot at taking home the Best Actress statuette.

Stone’s costars are up to the task as well. Mark Ruffalo’s performance as the emotionally stunted Casanova Duncan Wedderburn simmers with danger and petulance in a welcome turn from his more heroic roles.

It’s a part that contrasts nicely with Ramy Youssef’s more un-

tion to detail, sumptuous costuming, and extravagant set design make every frame a delight.

Viewers are treated to a whirlwind world tour, with each location a teetering mountain of whimsical steampunk detail. These outlandish sets hold both real beauty and real horror — which Bella wryly describes as “nothing but sugar and vio-

“

As an unabashedly bizarre and racy moviegoing experience, the movie will likely play well among critics, but may struggle to garner broader mass appeal.

derstated and practical Max McCandles. As Dr. Baxter, Dafoe, even under layers of monstrous prosthetics, delicately conveys both the pride and sadness of a parent whose child has become their own person.

Prosthetics make up only a small crumb of the visual feast that Lanthimos serves up with “Poor Things.” Careful atten-

lence.”

Within these inventive landscapes, Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara offer an off-kilter reflection of the social injustices that plague society, confronting viewers with the often hidden suffering that keeps it afloat. As Bella travels the world, she discovers not only the joys of science, art, and

friendship, but also the pain associated with misogyny, poverty, and exploitation. As her journey reminds the audience, humanity is capable of great love and great cruelty. This dichotomy presents Bella with a complicated choice about what kind of person she wants to become and simultaneously challenges viewers with the same task.

This investigation of humanity, however, is tied directly to Bella’s sexuality. The film’s one major misstep is its overreliance on sex for character growth. Female liberation is realized through sexual liberation — Bella enters the real world due to a tryst with Wedderburn and later becomes a prostitute — yet the camera remains fixed in the male gaze. Additionally the frequency and length of the film’s sex scenes feel shocking for the sake of being shocking — failing to materially develop the film’s nuanced themes.

Bella, however, maintains a strong degree of agency in these exploits and emerges not only intact, but stronger. Returning home after her long travels, she reconciles her complicated relationships with her father and McCandles as a means of reclaiming her own identity. The more she

realizes that identity, the more agitated the men around her become. It’s in this self-actualization that Lanthimos and McNamara justify their adaptation, turning the tragedy of “Frankenstein” on its head and giving it a more feminist inclination. Rather than indulging the idea of a sexually and intellectually liberated woman as a monster, the film rejects this patriarchal reading as Bella realizes her full potential as an equal member of society.

Anchored by some all-star performances, “Poor Things” will rightfully generate Oscar buzz. Made with a brazen and singular vision, Lanthimos and Stone’s achievements are towering and deeply satisfying. Its layers of strangeness might turn off some viewers, but the very human emotions at its center ring true. Topped off with decadent set design and costuming, this movie more than justifies its delicious reinvention of the classic “Frankenstein” story. daniel.pinckney@thecrimson.com

4 STARS

The Top Five Ugliest Buildings at Harvard

BY ROBERTO C. QUESADA CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Since its founding in 1636, Harvard has lived through various artistic movements. This is reflected in the university’s diverse architecture, which spans centuries. While Harvard has some of the most beautiful buildings in the Boston area, it also is home to some of the most repugnant. This two-part series will take a look at the best and worst that Harvard has given to the architectural world, starting with the ugliest.

5. Smith Campus Center by Josep Lluís Sert Year Opened: 1966 Completed in 1966 under the original title of Holyoke Center, the Smith Campus Center is hard to ignore. The building’s lofty ceilings make it stand out among the three-to-five story structures surrounding the Harvard Square T station. To be fair, the Smith Center has some admirable qualities.

For instance, it has a green wall that furnishes the lobby with an environmentalist touch. It also provides a beautiful view from the top floor which the Crimson once labeled “the one place in Cambridge from which you can’t see the [Smith] Center.” Unfor-

tunately, that is where the beauty ends. Designed in the brutalist style, the Smith Center is characterized by harsh exposed concrete which leaves a mark on its visitors.

This exposed concrete design also hurts the building’s aesthetics. It has weathered poorly, with many stains visible from the outside.

While the other buildings in Harvard Square and surrounding the Yard are made with red brick and blend together seamlessly to create a colonial look, the Smith Center is built as if to completely contrast these conventions. While this type of uniqueness can be satisfying for an architect wanting to feel special, it comes at the cost of everyone else who has to look at this building.

4. Canaday Hall by Ezra Ehrenkrantz Year Opened: 1974 In fourth place comes the freshman dorm that might have a larger rodent population than it has students: Canaday. Built in 1974, it is the newest dormitory in Harvard Yard. While one might expect the newest dorm to come with beautiful amenities, the story is quite the opposite at Canaday.

It is clear the architect made some attempts to beautify the building. For example, it has red

walls made of brick that serve to partially mask the brutalist look.

Additional design elements of the building include large blocky walls with little ornamentation or decoration. This was intentional, as the building was made to be resistant to protest and dissent. This means that Canaday is not only literally ugly, but also ugly in that it reflects an anti-protest style of architecture that goes against free speech ideals. A better way of making this dorm may have been to adopt the revivalist technique Yale University used to build Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin colleges. This technique allowed the buildings to have modern amenities on the inside, like temperature control, while maintaining an iconic look on the outside that matches the surrounding campus, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.

3. Carpenter Center by Le Corbusier Year Opened: 1963 In third place is the building that is, thankfully, the only building by architect Le Corbusier in North America. For context, Le Corbusier is the architect that wanted to destroy Paris to build brutalist high rises in its place. He also inspired Robert Moses, an urban planner whose projects evict-

ed Black and Brown people from their homes to build highways. It is no wonder then that Le Corbusier follows this alienating design language in the Carpenter Center, with imposing concrete walls that are plain and poorly weathered, especially on the ramp that is too steep for most wheelchairs.

The plaza around the building is also plain, with little greenery or ornamentation to attempt a pleasing or human-oriented design. While the building cannot be changed easily as it is on the National Register of Historic Places, it is fairly short and can’t be seen from more than a few blocks away. This keeps the ugliness well hidden, unlike some of the buildings further down this list.

2. Mather House by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbot Year Opened: 1970 Second on the list is a building that is so ugly that Harvard allegedly crops its website images to pretend it doesn’t exist: Mather House. Built in 1970, the building is a rectangular prism made of straight concrete, with no cladding or paint to disguise it.

The dormitories are outlined by burnt-orange colored boxes that hold the windows. The building’s

height means it can be seen from across the campus. A better version of this building could be one inspired by the DoubleTree hotel across the river. While this structure is also tall, it at least makes an effort to have some ornamentation such as a gabled roof and red exterior to fit in with the atmosphere of the campus. While the execution of the ornamentation is questionable, with an appearance that seems to mimic a high rise McMansion, the design is still better than Mather House.

1. Peabody Terrace by Josep Lluís Sert Year Opened: 1964 If you thought Mather House was the ugliest that Harvard could contribute, you would be incorrect. If you walk down the Charles River, you will find Peabody Terrace — the number one building complex on this list. Not only is this building ugly, but there are three of them! Designed by the same architect as the Smith Center, the structures are among the tallest on Harvard’s campus, which means their unattractiveness can be seen from all over Cambridge and Boston. Built in 1964 to primarily house graduate students, Peabody Terrace has been described by architect Robert Campbell as “beloved by

architects and disliked by almost everyone else.” The design, which features large concrete walls and strange rectangular balconies, was meant to combine Mediterranean and Northern European influences, but fails to replicate either. Rather, it reflects a cold, alienating style more reflective of a predatory corporation or an authoritarian government.

A better version of this type of dormitory would be the Student Village at Boston University, which is essentially a modern condominium building for students. Its open windows and more modest approach to materials such as concrete create a more pleasing environment for students. Thankfully for Peabody Terrace, it is not the ugliest building in the Boston area because Boston City Hall exists.

Overall, the 1960s and 1970s were truly a “flop era” in Harvard architectural history. With brutalist architects each providing their own unique takes on the future of buildings, they created some of the most unique, intriguing, yet also unappealing structures on Harvard’s campus. Thankfully, the top five most beautiful buildings on Harvard’s campus make up a much more diverse range of architectural styles, from the 1800s to 2020. roberto.quesada@thecrimson.com

FIFTEEN QUESTIONS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

Y

evgenia M. Albats is the editor-in-chief and CEO of the Russian publication The New Times and an associate of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

She served as a Nieman fellow in 1993 and afterward received her master’s degree in Government and Ph.D. in Political Science at Harvard. Albats has taught at Yale University, Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

FM: : What were your early experiences working as a journalist like?

YMA: It was still the Soviet Union, so there was no real journalism.

I wanted to go to grad school, but because there were quotas on Jews, and I’m Jewish, I couldn’t get into them. So, I went into journalism rather by accident.

I went to work for a newspaper in the Russian Far North. I was writing feature stories about people living in rural Russia, on the bank of the White Sea. It was a good experience for a young reporter from Moscow to find out how people lived outside big cities.

When I was young, I used to travel a lot. I was not allowed to go outside the Soviet Union. Russian authorities didn’t allow that. But I traveled a lot around the country to the Far East, Sakhalin, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Ukraine, you know, you name it, all across the country. Just you know, backpack, and off I go.

I think for young journalists, it’s a great way to start working.

Just go on the road, talk to people, listen to people. Try to understand how people live outside your bubble and your social strata and write about that.

Q&A:

YEVGENIA ALBATS ON JOURNALISM IN THE USSR, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, AND HER BIBLIOPHILIA THE JOURNALIST sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about her career, including being declared an enemy of the Russian state, investigative reporting on KGB officials, and her deep love of reading that was kindled in Widener Library’s basement.

BY HANNAH W. DUANE CRIMSON MAGAZINE WRITER

15

check this, this, and this. Just be very careful. And if you feel like you are going to endanger your well-being, just don’t do it. And so some of them do, some of them don’t. And then I read for what they send to me, and then I tell them that it’s total bullshit. It’s a bad job. They have to go back and do a better job. And that’s what you know, the job of the editor.

You constantly tell people unpleasant stuff.

Listen, it’s not an art. That’s very important to understand.

Journalism is not like writing a book or making a sculpture. It is an everyday job. And you need to know what kind of tools you need, you know how to ask questions. How to do fact-checking and all the standards.

FM: What is something you miss about living in Moscow?

YMA: When you get to a place and can say this is home, the streets around my house. I like to walk around.

But most importantly, my books.

I have one of the best political science libraries in the city, in Moscow. And I can find the book when there are no lights during the night. I know exactly where it is. And sometimes when I’m writing something here, and I say, I need this quote and this quote. I know this book.

FM: In your talk at the Davis Center, you spoke very passionately about the need for greater U.S. involvement in Ukraine.

Could you take a little more about that?

YMA: Yes, American involvement in the war in Ukraine is absolutely crucial for the success of this war. Just yesterday, this new temporal budget, which was passed by the House of Representatives, didn’t include either Ukraine nor Israel. President Biden requested $60 billion for Ukraine and $40 billion for Israel.

FM: Can you tell me about a mentor you had as a young reporter?

Ukraine won’t be able to sustain this war

YMA: No one really influenced me. You know, what you do when you’re getting into that line of work, you just read your predecessors, and you just learn from that. You cannot teach journalism really. You have to accept the ethics.

But you have to just learn how to do that. It’s not like art, no.

It’s just an everyday hard job.

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

FM: You’ve done a lot of very politically risky journalism.

Could you tell me about a time you put yourself on the line for your work?

and extracted false confessions.

YMA: If you start thinking about how you’re putting yourself on the line, you’re never going to do a story. So no, I don’t think about this. I just follow my instincts and my interests.

I started covering the Soviet Union’s political police, the KGB, in 1986. It was still the Soviet Union. It wasn’t possible to cover the way journalists here in the United States cover the CIA or the NSA. It’s very difficult to cover secret powers.

But I just started writing about Stalinist interrogators. I was obsessed with the idea of bringing justice to those millions who perished in the Stalinist Gulags. So I was searching for these bloody monsters, for the interrogators of the NKVD, who tortured people

YMA: I begin writing a story from hating. Even, you know, even the thought that I have to sit down and write makes me sick. I like research, I like being on assignment, I like talking to people, I like taking interviews, and then I hate writing. And then I hate I hate I hate and then I see that there is a deadline, and I have to write, and I do. And then somewhere in the middle, I feel like I’m flying.

And then I start loving this job.

And by the end, and when I finish my piece, early in the morning, I feel perfect joy.

FM: Can you tell me about your writing process? How do you begin writing a story?

FM: Could you tell me a bit about your journey at the New Times?

YMA: The whole story of this magazine is quite amazing. It was founded in 1943 by Joseph Stalin. And it was

another piece of Soviet propaganda, which was aimed predominantly at a readership outside the Soviet Union.

And then when the Soviet Union fell apart, it turned into a magazine of democratic ideas.

This magazine became very popular. We didn’t have control from any state or state-affiliated company. We had a private owner. And we didn’t report to anyone but to our readers.

Pretty quickly, we were labeled as an anti-Putin magazine because of our investigations.

Several times there were attempts to close the magazine.

By 2017, I had to close the paper edition and go digital. It became impossible to make any money.

Stands refused to sell us because they had problems with the Kremlin and distribution networks refused to distribute to us across the country because they had problems with local authorities, and so on.

And then we got the biggest fine ever in the history of the Russian

media. I was fined at the amount of 23 million rubles, it came to $370,000. And people, my readers bailed me out.

When the war started on Feb. 24, 2022, five days into the war, the New Times was blocked by the Russian authorities, as was other independent media.

So now we keep writing. We have a very, very small staff. Reporters who worked in Russia experience a lot of problems. I was pronounced a foreign agent. It’s like an enemy of the people.

The absolute majority of independent journalists or pro-democratic journalists just left the country. We are all exiles.

FM: How has reporting from abroad changed the nature of your work?

YMA: I don’t do reporting per se, because I’m an editor now. But I have people sitting on the ground.

And I tell them: I would like you to

without American help. Europe is trying to help Ukraine, but the United States of America was the major supporter in this war against the nowadays Hitler — I mean Putin by saying ‘nowadays Hitler.’

FM Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit THECRIMSON.COM/ MAGAZINE

16

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

SPORTS

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Harvard and Yale get set for a faceoff on October 28, 2022 at Bright-Landry Hockey Center. LEANNE ALVARADO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Harvard Earns Second Win DOMINANT IN NET \ Junior goalie Alex Pellicci recorded a 50-save shutout against St. Lawrence in Harvard’s second win.

BY OWEN BUTLER AND TOMMY BRANCA CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

O

ver the Thanksgiving holiday, Harvard women’s ice hockey played three games, but was unable to come out of the weekend with any points. In its first game, the Crimson took a trip up to Durham, N.H., where it faced the New Hampshire Wildcats (7-71). With Harvard unable to find the back of the net, the Wildcats pulled away with a 3-0 win, having scored a goal in each period.

The Wildcats’ Brooke Hammer had an impressive performance, putting up three points with two goals and an assist.

Back at home, the Crimson played their second game against Minnesota (9-2-0), which is currently ranked fourth in the country. Harvard entered the second period trailing 1-0, but the Crimson was able to tie the game on a power play goal by sophomore Gwyn Lapp. The game remained tied until the end of the second period, when Minnesota found the back of the net while on a power play. Minnesota went on to win the game 3-1, scoring their third goal on another power play opportunity.

Harvard played its third game of the holiday week against St. Thomas (5-11-0) and ultimately fell short of completing a third period comeback,

losing 4-3.

Heading into its final two games before the winter recess, the Crimson were looking to close out the first part of their season on a positive note. The Crimson faced two nationally ranked teams, No. 8 St. Lawrence and No. 5 Clarkson.

Harvard 1, St. Lawrence 0 Harvard managed to pull out a win against St. Lawrence, despite being outshot 52-19. This was largely due to the performance of junior goaltender Alex Pellicci, who stopped every shot she faced and kept the Crimson in the game.

“We don’t want to give up 50plus, I think that was the first night this season that we did, so not sustainable for us necessarily,” said head coach Laura Bel-

lamy. “But she was definitely the story, kept the puck out of the net all night, it’s pretty crazy if you can get a 50-plus save shutout.”

Harvard started the game off strong, with the score still tied at zero at the conclusion of the first period. While the Crimson did a strong job of maintaining puck possession in the offensive zone, it nevertheless struggled to get shots on goal, and it failed to capitalize on some key scoring opportunities on the power play.

Harvard started off well in the defensive zone, blocking five shots and making quick work of getting the puck out of the zone. The penalty kill was one of the strongest aspects of the Crimson’s first period, completely shutting down St. Lawrence’s power play and not allowing many dangerous opportunities.

“D-zone, defense in general, were great this game,” said Pel-

pass from linemate Sophie Ensley. Both sides had their fair share of scoring chances, but after two, the game remained deadlocked at 0-0.

Not much changed for Harvard heading into the third period. The Crimson was still stuck in its defensive zone for most of the third, and it struggled to create offensive opportunities. However, the Crimson showed great signs of life in the waning minutes of the game, with a few chance opportunities that just couldn’t find the back of the net. Pellicci continued doing exactly what she had been doing all night, and kept every St. Lawrence shot out of the net. After no scoring in regulation, the game headed to overtime.

The first few minutes of overtime were spent in Harvard’s defensive zone, but a combination of impressive stops by Pellicci and strong team play allowed

She was definitely the story, kept the puck out of the net all night, it’s pretty crazy if you can get a 50-plus save shutout.

Laura Bellamy Harvard women’s ice hockey head coach

licci. “Not a lot of big looks, and didn’t have to do a lot of hard backdoor saves, so the defensive zone, clearing pucks, breaking out when necessary, they did their job and it allowed me to do mine.”

Harvard struggled to generate offense in the second period, with a majority of the period spent in the defensive zone. The Crimson struggled to get the puck out of its zone on the penalty kill, but Pellicci continued her dominant performance in net, once again stopping every shot she faced in the period, including a heavy barrage from the St. Lawrence power play.

The Crimson had its fair share of scoring chances, including a powerful shot from Gwyn Lapp after she received a nifty drop

the Crimson to gain possession of the puck and go on the offensive. With just 45 seconds left in the game, after receiving a crossice pass from Hannah Chorske, Lapp came down on a breakaway, performed a backhand deke, and beat the St. Lawrence goaltender to win it for Harvard 1-0, giving the Crimson their second win of the season.

Clarkson 9, Harvard 1 In their second game of the weekend, the Crimson faced off against No. 5 Clarkson (18-0-2) and were once again outshot by a large margin 48-13. Dominating the shot column, the Golden Knights beat the Crimson with a convincing 9-1 victory. The Golden Knights were firing on all lines,

as nine different players scored in the game.

To start off the first period, the Golden Knights were ready to play and immediately put the Crimson on their heels. Controlling just about all of the first period, the Knights put up 15 shots and were able to find the back of the net on two of them.

The Golden Knights notched goals just a minute and 48 seconds apart on strikes from Baylee Kirwan and Brooke McQuigge, respectively, and the Crimson headed into the first intermission trailing by two.

The scoring started off quickly in the second period, as the Knights added to their lead just four minutes into the period off a goal by Dominique Petrie, who transferred to Clarkson from Harvard to compete as a graduate student.

The Crimson answered just two minutes later to cut the lead back to two. Harvard’s goal came from senior captain Shannon Hollands, who beat the Knights goalie with a nice backhand shot.

Hollands was assisted by firstyear Angelica Megdanis, who found her in open in front after rushing the puck deep in the zone. This was Megdanis’ first career point.

The momentum shift from goal only lasted so long, as the Knights quickly stole it back and controlled the rest of the period.

The Knights continued to pepper the Crimson with shots and were able to score twice more in the back half of the period to skate off with a 5-1 lead.

Carrying their momentum from the end of the second, the Knights sealed the game two minutes into the period, taking away any hope Harvard had of getting back into it. The Knights scored two quick goals in these two minutes to extend their lead to six. They controlled the rest of the game, scoring twice more to finish off the game with a 9-1 victory.

Although their second game did not go as they had hoped, the Crimson head out of the weekend with just their second win of the season and head into the winter break with a 2-12-1 record.

SPORTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 8, 2023

17

Then-freshman center Philip Tresca takes a faceoff against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round of the 2023 NCAA tournament. DYLAN J. GOODMAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY

Harvard Limps into Break with Shutout Losses SHUT OUT ­Harvard was unable to score a goal or take home a point this weekend, and it heads into winter break with only one win on the season.

BY BRIDGET T. SANDS AND AARON B. SHUCHMAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

S

truggling to score is unfamiliar territory for the Harvard men’s ice hockey team. After ranking second or better in the ECAC in goals-per-game in each of the last two seasons, the Crimson ranks last of the 12 teams so far this season, checking in with a 1.78 goals-per-game average. Harvard has been held to one goal or fewer in five of its nine games so far this season.

The team’s season-long search for offensive consistency reared its head this weekend on the Crimson’s trip to upstate New York, where the squad failed to score a single goal in losses to Clarkson and St. Lawrence on Friday and Saturday, respectively. With injuries, especially on defense, beginning to mount, Harvard will be hard-pressed to work through its offensive struggles over the upcoming nearly monthlong break.

“Obviously not the result we wanted for both games,” junior forward and captain Zakary Karpa said. “We’re obviously losing a lot of guys right now, so we’re just gonna have to regroup after this weekend and then use this time off to get healthy again and have a better second half.”

The Crimson has held its own against top teams this season, defeating Cornell, the ECAC’s second-best team, while losing close games to UMass and Boston College, both of whom are ranked in the national top-10. However, Harvard hasn’t been able to capture any momentum from those games, and it is sitting on only one win after nine games.

While its power play ranks 13th in the country at a 23.1% conversion rate, the Crimson has only scored 10 goals at even strength.

“We can play the best teams in the country when we play our system and play together,” Karpa said. “We just need to generate more offensively. So I think we just need to stick together as a group and we’ll have a better result going forward.”

St. Lawrence 2, Harvard 0 Harvard’s depth was tested on Saturday night against St. Lawrence, as junior Luke Khozozian

saw his first action since 20212022, playing as a defenseman despite being officially listed as a forward. Upperclassmen defensemen Jack Bar, Kyle Aucoin, and Ian Moore all sat out Saturday’s game due to injury, but the Crimson’s inexperienced defensive corps and sophomore goaltender Aku Koskenvuo were able to keep Harvard competitive.

“The biggest thing for us right now is we just gotta get healthy.

We’re missing a lot of guys on the back end,” sophomore forward Joe Miller said. “Everybody’s banged up.”

The Saints got off to a strong start, as forward Gunnar Thoreson tallied his first career goal on a wrist shot from above the circle four minutes into the first period.

St. Lawrence was very successful at limiting the Crimson’s chances at even strength in the first period, holding it to four shots on goal that were all gobbled up by goaltender Ben Kraws, giving the Saints a narrow advantage heading into the second period.

In an evenly-played second period, each team recorded 10 shots on goal as the offenses traded chances. St. Lawrence started the period with a series of strong shifts, but Harvard regained momentum and controlled the puck in the middle of the period. However, the Saints blocked six shots

in the 20 minutes of action, keeping the Crimson off the board heading into the final period.

Just as in the first period, St. Lawrence struck quickly in the third, with forward Josh Boyer deflecting defenseman Maison Waite’s shot from the left-wing boards past Koskenvuo to double the home team’s advantage to 2-0.

Harvard did not go away quietly, posting 14 shots on Kraws in the final 20 minutes. However, the team’s usually potent power play was extinguished on its only opportunity of the game halfway through the third period. The Crimson had some quality opportunities with Koskenvuo pulled with under three minutes to play, but Kraws, along with the Saints’ shot-blocking prowess, kept Harvard out of the net, sending the Crimson to its second straight shutout loss.

“I think it’s a really positive thing to see this team doesn’t give up on games, even like tonight, they score in the third period and make it 2-0 and I felt we elevated our game to another level,” Miller said. “Regardless of what the score is, I don’t think we give up and I think that’s a great characteristic that we have as a team.”

Clarkson 3, Harvard 0 As has been the case through the

season, senior goaltender Derek Mullahy played an outstanding game, especially in the first period, where he stopped 11 of 12 shots, including a fabulous glove save on forward Cody Monds. However, the Golden Knights took an early lead midway through the first period when forward Ryan Taylor deflected a shot from the point past Mullahy.

The Crimson had a chance to respond on a power play soon after, but Clarkson goalie Austin Roden denied all four Harvard shots on goal, and the Crimson could not generate further offense at even strength, leaving the deficit at one after the first period.

“As a young team, we just got to focus on learning how to control the puck down low, really possessing it in the zone, and then getting to the front of the net, especially in our league where it’s really tough to score goals against these bigger, older teams,” Miller said.

The Golden Knights got off to a fast start in the second period, when forward Erik Bargholtz capitalized off of a Crimson turnover from behind the net and slapped home a rebound to extend the Clarkson lead to 2-0.

Harvard’s power play had two opportunities in the middle of the period to cut into the deficit, but the Crimson failed to take ad-

GAMES TO WATCH OVER THE BREAK

vantage. Sophomore defenseman Ryan Healey, earning extended time on the top power play unit due to junior defenseman and captain Ian Moore’s injury, made a series of quality passes to set up shots for his teammates. But Roden was up to the task, keeping Harvard at bay and down by two goals heading into the third period.

“We had a lot of good looks.

We just didn’t get a lot of bounces on the power play,” Karpa said.

Without a power play opportunity in the third period to aid the comeback effort, the Crimson struggled to generate offense at even strength, mustering only three shots on goal in the final 20 minutes of action. Harvard only generated one shot attempt when it pulled its goalie with under three minutes to play, and Bargholtz scored his second of the night into the empty net with just over a minute to play to secure the 3-0 shutout.

Harvard will travel to Princeton for its next game on Dec. 30, before heading to Storrs, Conn. on New Years’ Eve for a game against the UConn Huskies. The Crimson will then kick off 2024 with a trip to Tempe, Arizona for the Desert Hockey Classic. bridget.sands@thecrimson.com aaron.shuchman@thecrimson.com

THC

FRIDAY 12/9

THURSDAY 12/21

FRIDAY 12/22

THURSDAY 12/28

FRIDAY 12/29

Women’s Basketball at Boston University 7:30 p.m.

Men’s Basketball vs. Holy Cross 2:00 p.m.

Laveites Pavilion

Women’s Basketball at University of Massachusetts Lowell 1:00 p.m.

Women’s Basketball at University of Rhode Island 6:00 p.m.

Wrestling at Midlands 8:00 a.m.

Read more at THECRIMSON.COM

To The 150th Guard of The Harvard Crimson:

THANK YOU Cara J. Chang Brandon L. Kingdollar Cynthia V. Lu Leah J. Teichholtz Meimei Xu Eleanor V. Wikstrom Christina M. Xiao Derek S. Chang Penelope M. Alegria Ellie H. Ashby Mairead B. Baker Aden Barton Calvin A. Beighle Isabel W. Brown Tina Chen Isabella B. Cho Daniel S. de Castro Yab G. Demisie Gordon J. Ebanks Millie Mae Healy Katie E. Hennessey

Anya L. Henry Carrie Hsu Joey Huang Ruby J.J. Huang Jen A. Hughes Lucas T. Gazianis Vivienne N. Germain Io Y. Gilman Julian J. Giordano Sarah Girma Wittman Goh James R. Jolin Alexandra A. Kassinis Naomi Kenyatta Ariel H. Kim Hailey E. Krasnikov Zachary J. Lech Amber H. Levis Vivi E. Lu Kevin Luo Toby R. Ma

Natalie G. Martin Charles W. McCormick Joshua Ochieng Liam A. Peterson Hana Rehman Alisa S. Regassa Sophia Salamanca Max H. Schemer Aaron B. Shuchman Mayesha R. Soshi Shanivi Srikonda Sami E. Turner Matylda A. Urbaniak Maya M.F. Wilson Mia A. Word Libby Wu Eric Yan Justin Y. Ye Manuel A. Yepes Vivian Zhao

Keep the old sheet flying.