The Harvard Crimson - Volume CLI, No. 9

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

Harvard College accepted 3.59 percent of applicants to its Class of 2028 — the highest acceptance rate in four years — in the first admissions cycle since the fall of affirmative action prohibited the College from considering race during the process.

Harvard offered admission to 1,245 applicants at 7 p.m. on Thursday, all of whom join the 692 students who were accepted in the early admission cycle this December. In total, Harvard offered admission to 1,937 students to join the Class of 2028.

“We think they’re the greatest,” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R.

Fitzsimmons ’67 said of the admitted class in a Thursday interview. “We really want to see them come here.”

Harvard received a total of 54,008 applications, a 5.14 percent decrease from last year even as it marked the fourth year in a row that it received more than 50,000 applications.

Thursday’s announcement also contained one notable omission: race and ethnicity data for the incoming class. The College did not release the statistics when it announced its early admission results in December, and intends to withhold the data until admitted students accept or decline their offers later this summer.

The College is still in the midst of processing transfer applications, and waitlist decisions will be released once admitted students accept or decline their offers.

Tuition continued to rise this year,

climbing to $82,866 for students who do not receive financial aid — a 4.3 percent increase from last year’s tuition of $79,450.

But even as tuition continued to climb, Harvard did not increase its threshold for receiving full financial aid. The decision is a break from the past two years when the College steadily increased the threshold for full financial aid by $10,000.

Like last year, the cost to attend Harvard will be free for students with annual family incomes below $85,000. By maintaining its financial aid threshold at 2023 levels, the College will likely face questions about whether the recent donor backlash to the University contributed to that decision.

This year, Pell Grant eligible students make up 20.7 percent of the class, an increase from 19 percent last year. More than 20 percent of accepted students are

the first in their family to attend college.

Despite delays in the release of federal student aid data after recent miscalculations by the U.S. Department of Education, Fitzsimmons dismissed concerns that students’ financial aid packages will be delayed.

“Anybody who sent in material, they will have an award tonight,” Fitzsimmons said.

For the seventh consecutive year, women make up a slight majority — 53.1 percent — of Harvard’s admitted class.

The Class of 2028 also comes from all 50 states and every region of the United States: 20.1 percent of admitted students hail from the mid-Atlantic, while 18.5 percent come from the Western and Mountain states, 16.6 percent from New

SEE

Courses in the Social Science division are facing a shortage of graduate student teaching fellows as Harvard’s Ph.D. cohorts have shrunk following the Covid-19 pandemic and amid a general shift away from the humanities and social sciences.

Though the total number of doctoral students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has “remained relatively unchanged,” according to a GSAS report released last year, more students are enrolling in STEM programs, while Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences have seen a steady decrease.

Now, professors in the Social Sciences division told The Crimson that they have struggled to find enough Ph.D. students with relevant expertise to help teach their courses.

Matthew Blackwell, a professor in

the government department who teaches Gov 50, faced the challenge of finding enough TFs for his class this fall.

“In Fall 23, our enrollment was around 250, which would have required at least 8 TFs, but the department was only able to provide 5,” Blackwell wrote in an emailed statement.

Edward L. Glaeser, an economics professor and the department chair, faced similar challenges for finding TFs for Ec1011a, a class he taught in the fall.

“Finding teaching assistants for Economics 1011a, which is a hard course, is incredibly difficult,” Glaeser wrote.

“The problem is getting worse, and this year, Economics 1011a had a single teaching fellow for the entire class,” he added.

“We supplemented with undergraduate CAs who taught sections, very similar to other large classes like Stat 110 or CS 50.” Blackwell wrote. “For Gov 50, at least, our mix of graduate and undergraduate TFs

Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 endorsed interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 to permanently succeed Claudine Gay in a Tuesday interview with The Crimson.

“I hope that Alan will be named the president and have the interim title removed,” Daley said. The University is facing its worst leadership crisis in decades following former President Claudine Gay’s resignation in January. Garber, Harvard’s longtime provost, became interim president immediately following Gay’s resignation.

Daley is the most high-profile Harvard administrator to weigh in on the

“I am right now inspired and engaged with the job that I have,”

said. “I hope I can remain in this role for years to come.”

Daley said that he has a longstanding relationship with Garber, who has a degree from Stanford Medical School.

“Alan has been my closest partner,” Daley said.

“He is the reason that I accepted the position,” he added, referring to his decision to become dean in 2017.

After medical school, Garber completed

BELFER CENTER. Former Iraq President Barham A. Salih joined the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Middle East Initiative as a senior fellow, the center announced on March 22. Salih will hold this position at the Belfer Center through the end of the 2024-2025 academic year. He joins “a community of scholars and experienced leaders convened by the Middle East Initiative and the Center overall to conduct

AROUND THE IVIES Yale

code to the feasibility of a University-wide institutional neutrality policy. BY S. MAC HEALEY AND SAKETH SUNDAR — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS, MUHAMMAD H TAHIR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

In Photos: 38th Annual Cultural Rhythms Showcase

BY MARINA QU AND A. SKYE SCHMIEGELOW — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHERS

CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS

On Saturday, the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations held its 38th annual Cultural Rhythms Showcase, featuring performances from 10 student cultural groups. The event also honored actress Angela E. Bassett and actor Courtney B. Vance ’82 as the Artists of the Year. The showcase closed out the weeklong Cultural Rhythms celebration, which included a fashion show, food festival, dialogues, and karaoke.

Dancers in RAZA Ballet Folklorico join Mariachi Veritas musicians in highlighting Mexico’s culture through vibrant music and captivating dance.

MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

The Harvard Taekwondo Demonstration Team proves their martial arts prowess on stage. MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

The Kuumba Singers, the oldest existing Black organization at Harvard College, take the stage for the first performance of the night. MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

The Asian American Dance Troupe performs an umbrella dance in the traditional Chinese style: the piece portrays a rainstorm, and the dancers demonstrate strength, elegance, and tenacity. Various other student groups performed throughout the night, with The Harvard Undergraduate Philippine Forum concluding the showcase with its national dance — the Tinikiling. MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Cultural Rhythms Directors Kyla N. Golding ’24 and Cindy H. Phan ’24 hold a Q&A with two-time Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor and producer Courtney B. Vance ’82. Golden Globe Award-winning actress, producer, and executive director Angela E. Bassett could not attend the event. MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Candela Latin Dance Troupe ignites the stage, infusing every move with the vibrant rhythms and spirit of Latin dance. MARINA QU — CRIMSON

MARCH 29, 2024 THE HARVARD CRIMSON

IN THE REAL WORLD

SIX PRESUMED DEAD AFTER BALTIMORE BRIDGE COLLAPSE

A major bridge in Baltimore partially collapsed after it was hit by a freight ship early on Tuesday. The cargo ship lost power moments before it crashed into the bridge, sending at least eight people into the water, six of whom are presumed to be dead. Divers recovered two of the six presumed bodies on Wednesday, AP News reported. The victims — who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge — were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

RUSSIA STRENGTHENS EFFORTS AGAINST UKRAINE BEFORE U.S. ELECTIONS

Russia intensified its online efforts to derail military funding for Ukraine in the U.S. and Europe. Disinformation experts and intelligence assessments attribute this to Russia’s use of harderto-trace technologies to amplify arguments for isolationism ahead of U.S. elections. Russian operatives are laying the groundwork for what could be a push to support candidates who oppose aiding Ukraine, or who call for pulling the U.S. from NATO and other alliances, according to the New York Times.

TRUMP’S SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY OPENS NEW AVENUE FOR CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Experts say Trump Media’s new status as a publicly traded company would create new avenues for foreign actors to influence former U.S. President Donald Trump if he is elected again. Corporations and other players looking to sway Trump could buy advertising on Truth Social, owned by Trump Media & Technology Group.

DISNEY BACKS DOWN FROM LEGAL BATTLE WITH FLORIDA GOVERNOR

Disney

NEXT WEEK 3

What’s Next

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

Friday 3/29

NIGERIAN STUDENTS ASSOCIATION

HOSTS STARBOY PAGEANT

Lowell Lecture Hall, 8 p.m.

Starboy is Harvard NSA’s second annual all-male fashion show. It will consist of performances, dancing, and fashion shows featuring up-andcoming Nigerian designers from across the country.

Saturday 3/30

FILM SCREENING: A BRIGHTER

SUMMER DAY

Harvard Film Archive, 6-10 p.m.

Join the Harvard Film Archive for a screening of Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day. Similar to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness (1989), the film also traces the experiences of a large family during a critical historical epoch in Taiwan.

Sunday 3/31

WHAT ARTISTS HIDE IN THEIR WORK, WITH MELINDA MODISETTE

Harvard Art Museums, 2:00-2:50 p.m.

Join the Harvard Art Museums for a spotlight tour. Melinda L. Modisette ’25 will explore works that contain hidden elements, including a painting on top of a painting, a sculpture that once encapsulated precious objects, and another painting full of strange surprises.

Monday 4/1

MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE OF “STRATEGIC” ISLAMIC ETHICS

Dennis F. Thompson Seminar Room, 12 p.m. Islamic ethics is derived from Islamic jurisprudence, the teachings of Sufism, Arabic linguistics, social context, and Muslim International law & foreign policy. This presentation will feature an overview of the principles of “strategic Islamic ethics.”

Tuesday 4/2

AN EVENING OF EMBRACING CHANGE & THAI FOOD

Standish Hall Senior Common Room, 7:30p.m.

Join Kate Bean for an evening of stimulating conversation and delicious Thai food. Kate is a 2024 Senior Fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative and a trailblazing entrepreneur who has dedicated her life to education.

Wednesday 4/3

FILM SCREENING & DISCUSSION:

“GENERAL MAGIC”

Harvard Innovation Labs, 6:15 p.m.

Join the Harvard Innovation Labs for a 6:15-7:45 p.m. screening of “General Magic,” a documentary film that tells the story of one of history’s greatest tech teams, who, after a great failure, changed the lives of billions.

Thursday 4/4

LIBERATO KANI: QUECHUA HIP-HOP Boylston Hall, Fong Auditorium, 5 p.m. Musical performance and conversation on Indigenous urban movements with Liberato Kani, Quechua hip-hop artist, and Jorge Luis Astovilca, a master of traditional Andean scissor dancing. This event will offer the chance to learn about Indigenous urban music and dancing in the Andes.

Friday 4/5

THE FROMM PLAYERS PRESENT

“PIANO: SONIC REVOLUTIONS”

Paine Concert Hall, 7:30 p.m. These concerts showcase the Department of Music’s two new Steinway D Grands and highlight the piano’s versatility and dynamism as an instrument that has evolved from traditional classical beginnings to a world where music and modern technology meet.

ACTIVISTS

ANNIVERSARY OF SCHOOL SHOOTING

One

SQUIRRELY SIGHTING

Fossil Fuels Fall Below 2%

BY SIDNEY K. LEE AND THOMAS J. METE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Harvard Management Company — which stewards the University’s $50.7 billion endowment — reported the endowment’s investments in fossil fuels have fallen below 2 percent, as Harvard remains on pace to fully divest from the industry by 2050. The latest details of the University’s 2020 commitment to achieve net-zero emissions in its endowment by 2050 and meet its

were

Wednesday

“HMC’s remaining exposure to private equity funds focused on the exploration and development of fossil fuels represented less than 2 percent of the endowment, a decrease from 2022,” the report said. “As expected, the endowment’s exposure to climate transition solutions is on pace to exceed those in fossil fuel-related investments in the next few years.” Following both public and student pressures for the University to complete a full divestment from the fossil fuel industry, then-Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow directed HMC to develop a plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and address its ties to the fossil fuel industry. The current fossil fuel holdings are what Bacow labeled as the endowment’s “legacy investments,” meaning HMC has avoided direct exposure to fossil fuels when investing in new private equity funds.

Harvard’s fossil fuel investments are currently worth approximately $1 billion.

HMC has since adopted a “thematic strategy” to generate endowment returns by investing in technologies that accelerate the low-carbon transition. The strategy includes investments that not only directly reduce emissions, but also investing in climate transition solutions which now exceed 1 percent of the endowment. HMC’s climate-focused investments are largely through venture capital and asset management firms. In the report, they mentioned the frameworks of Breakthrough Energy and Eclipse as exemplary leaders in climate conscious investing.

“HMC is optimistic that these investments in climate solutions will help drive sustainable development and job growth, while generating competitive financial returns,” the report reads.

HMC is currently develop -

ing frameworks to accurately assess the endowment’s emissions, but has faced challenges in calculating climate statistics for the portion of the endowment that has been outsourced to external managers, per to the report.

Hedge funds represent the second largest asset class in HMC’s portfolio, comprising 31 percent of the portfolio. Assessing the carbon emissions of hedge funds remains the “most challenging” part of their ongoing effort to document Harvard’s entire endowment portfolio, the report stated.

While many asset owners with net zero commitments simply exclude hedge funds from their emissions analyses, HMC is working with a third-party service provider to pilot a custom hedge fund carbon emissions report. Over the coming year, HMC has pledged to improve its access to climate-related data from its external managers to establish a baseline measurement for the portfolio to identify short term targets for reductions.

“HMC recognizes the critical need to develop and disclose interim goals and progress toward the achievement of those goals to ensure accountability and transparency,” the report stated. While HMC is committed to fulfilling its net zero commitments with fund and portfolio managers, they are also committed to holding their internal operations to a carbon neutral standard. 2023 marked the second consecutive year HMC’s operations were carbon neutral and aligned its services with the University’s climate commitments.

sidney.lee@thecrimson.com thomas.mete@thecrimson.com

College Announces New Advising Model

BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND JOYCE E. KIM CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Harvard College Advising Programs Office rolled out significant changes to the first-year advising network, assigning incoming freshmen pre-concentration advisers during their first three semesters, according to a Wednesday statement to The Crimson.

In a break from tradition, the changes replace the first-year and sophomore academic advisers with a pre-concentration adviser assigned to students until they declare their concentration in October of their sophomore year. The 2023-24 academic year will be the final year that each residential house retains designated academic advisers for their sophomore students.

According to APO Director Aliya S. Bhimani, the College and APO jointly assessed and implemented structural changes to the advising network in July 2023.

By assigning each incoming student just one adviser across their first three semesters at the College — down from two under the previous model — the changes will provide continuity, remove “choppy transitions,” and fix the “incompatibility with new course registration timing,” Bimani wrote in a Wednesday emailed statement to The Crimson. The new pre-concentration advisers will feature three types of University affiliates with varying degrees of familiarity with the College’s curriculum and requirements: proctors, volunteers, and non-ladder faculty who hold a part-time staff position in the APO.

Currently, freshmen are advised by a group of faculty, staff, students, and residential proctors who make up their first-year advising network. In the fall of sophomore year, students are assigned a sophomore adviser in their undergraduate House who assists with course selection and academic planning before concentration advisers are assigned. Bhimani wrote that the changes were implemented due to challenges with the current first-year advising model — most notably, confusion with students having multiple advisers during their first three semesters and the lack of uniform training and expertise among the volunteer advisers.

The changes to academic advising come after the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted in favor of previous term course registration in May 2022. Under the new course registration model, freshmen must register for their sophomore fall semester courses during the spring of their first year — significantly reducing the time they have to receive advising and explore academic interests.

The APO held a series of meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for Peer Advising Fellows, undergraduates who provide first-year advising alongside residential proctors. The meetings, led by APO staff, focused on equipping PAFs — undergraduates who are also still learning to navigate the new course registration system — with the knowledge to answer their freshmen advisees’ questions about fall term course registration.

with Prof. Glaeser’s assessment.”

“It’s impossible to have ample teaching staff if the university refuses to bring in the student workers who would do that work,” Sanchez added.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday evening.

In emailed statements, government professors Stephen Chaudoin and Stephen D. An-

solabehere wrote the supply of available TFs was also affected by decreasing recruitment rates and the impact of Covid-19 on the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. “There is a lot of student demand for Government classes, which raises demand for our TFs,” Chaudoin wrote in an email. “But the number of PhD students we’re allowed to recruit has also shrunk a lot.”

Ansolabehere wrote GSAS had been shrinking Ph.D. cohorts even before the pandemic, but added that the problem was exacerbated by the “echo of COVID.”

“The graduate school had to shrink during COVID to allow current PhD students to have additional time in the program,” Ansolabehere said.

Nathan Grau, a History Ph.D. candidate, said the number of students in his program saw a steep decline. In the cohort after his, 19 people were admitted to the Ph.D. program, according to Grau.

“The year after the pandemic, there were seven,” he added. But Grau said the “huge con-

traction in the number of Ph.D.s that Harvard lets into the History department” was “really long overdue,” calling it a temporary solution for a broader crisis facing academia.

“What the history Ph.D. trains you to do, fundamentally, is to become a professor of history at a university,” Grau said. “The number of available jobs in that field is basically falling off a cliff — our field is in this really radical decline.”

“The change that needs to happen is broader than just Harvard,” Grau said.

Kenneth Alyass, another Ph.D. student in the History department, echoed this sentiment.

“I think what we’re seeing in this department with its TF shortage is just a symptom of this broader issue,” Alyass said. “People in the department, they can put a bandaid on it, but at the end of the day, the solutions to this problem have to come from much higher places at a much larger scale.”

A persistent odor in the Winthrop House dining hall has drawn student complaints and a range of speculated causes. Students described the smell as “putrid,” likening it to trash and sewage.

Students said they believed the smell might be from a problem with leaky sewage pipes, the nearby trash room, Winthrop’s proximity to the Charles River, or the dining hall’s underground location.

Winthrop’s dining hall was closed for several days in 2005 due to an odor from a drainage problem, though complaints of odors date back to the 1970s.

In response to a student inquiry, Winthrop building manager Sarah Gallant wrote in an email obtained by The Crimson that she is meeting with “House renewal, plumbers, and Siemens” two to three times per week to resolve the smell.

“The team is aware of the challenge and is actively working toward a solution. We will continue to engage the community in the conversation,” College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a statement. Several students said the smell has persisted for more than one year and that it varies in intensity.

Bolu A. Ilelaboye ’25 said he first noticed the smell last spring and described it as “like caca,” the Spanish word for feces.

“Eating and the smell is not a good combination,” Ilelaboye said. Tomisin M Sobande ’26, a Crimson design editor and resident of Pforzheimer House , said she first noticed the smell a few weeks ago when she was walking through the Winthrop Grille to get to the dining hall.

“It’s quite strong,” Sobande said. “And when you’re walking down the steps, it’s really gradual. So you start to smell a little and then as you get closer to the dhall, it gets stronger — which is suspicious.”

Caleb W. Yee ’25 said the Winthrop dining hall is developing a reputation for the smell, citing that the smell was mentioned in at least one Housing Day video, trailer-like videos produced each year to garner excitement and house pride for freshmen. Winthrop resident Andrew L. Avila ’25 said that smelling the dining hall as a freshman made him not want to be housed in Winthrop, adding that the smell is “putrid.”

Some students in Winthrop said their friends are more reluctant to join them for meals due to the smell.

“It’s always a real challenge to get people out here,” Avila said. Angie Gabeau ’25 also said her friends often do not want to eat in Winthrop, though she said she is less bothered by the smell after adjusting to it. “I feel like I’m really used to there being a weird smell in the dhall, so I definitely recognize when it’s worse than other times,” she said. Milo J. Clark ’24 could not recall the first time he encountered the smell, but said he

Broad, Boston Children’s Provide More Plagiarism Detection Tools

The

that I’m aware of.”

cess to these tools comes weeks after data sleuths alleged claims of research misconduct against top Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists and a Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher. The majority of instances of data fabrication were rooted in image manipulation and duplication.

Broad Information Technology Services, the Academic Affairs Officers, and scientific teams chose to implement Proofig and Imagetwin “after several weeks of review,” according to the email. Where Proofig can be used to detect manipulations within a manuscript, Imagetwin can be employed to identify duplication across previously published papers. “Neither tool catches everything it is intended to catch, which reinforces the ongoing importance of a thorough, manual (human) review of all images and underlying data prior to submission,” Golub wrote. “Proofig and Imagetwin should be viewed as complements to, rath-

er than replacements for, your preexisting quality control procedures,” he added.

According to the email, Broad Institute officials are also currently reviewing additional systems “that can help authors flag instances of inadvertent plagiarism.”

At Boston Children’s Hospital, Andrews recommended the use of similar tools in an emailed statement to affiliates on February 7.

“There is no good excuse for doctored figures or altered data. However, they happen, and some are not caught prior to publication,” Andrews wrote.

She encouraged researchers to use Research Computing, which

“offers assistance in detecting AI-generated content and text that appears to be plagiarized,” according to the email.

“We are developing a comprehensive list of research integrity resources and can provide data management best practices to your lab upon request,” Andrews added. Such tools have not yet been made available to researchers in the broader Harvard community.

Harvard Medical School Dean for Faculty & Research Integrity Kristin Bittinger said in an interview with The Crimson that there has been “no institutional decision on that either at the Medical School or at Harvard University

Though HMS has not recently faced allegations of research misconduct or data manipulation against their original research, some accused scientists at affiliated hospitals have had joint appointments at the Medical School.

“That doesn’t mean it may not happen,” she added. “It just means there’s no decision — nothing to share on it at this time.”

“Certainly, leadership is looking closely at everything that we can do to improve research integrity across all of our community,” Bittinger said.

veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com

Sonia Sotomayor Named 2024 Radcliffe Medal Recipient

Supreme Court Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor will be awarded the 2024 Radcliffe Medal — the highest honor awarded by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study — in a ceremony on May 24, according to a Thursday press release.

“I can think of no more deserving a recipient of our 2024 Radcliffe Medal than Justice Sonia Sotomayor,” Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin said in the press release.

The Radcliffe Medal is presented yearly to “an individual who has had a transformative impact on society,” according to the Institute’s website.As the 39th recipient of the award, Sotomayor joins a distinguished list of recipients, including former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Madeleine K. Albright, current Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, and former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.

Sotomayor is the third woman who has served on the Supreme

Court to receive the award. The Radcliffe Medal was previously awarded to Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Since becoming dean of the Radcliffe Institute in 2018, Brown-Nagin has awarded the Radcliffe Medal to four other women: Dolores Huerta, Melinda French Gates, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Ophelia Dahl. Sotomayor will be presented the award on Radcliffe Day — when the Institute holds keynote speeches and moderates discussions related to the work of the Medal’s recipient — during Harvard University’s Commencement Week. Actress Rita Moreno will provide a testimonial at the event, followed by a conversation between Sotomayor and former Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. A daughter of immigrants, Sotomayor grew up in a low-income single-parent household in New York. She later graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 before attending Yale Law School.Sotomayor was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009 by former U.S. president Barack

Obama, becoming the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

The Institute’s press release said Sotomayor has built a “reputation as a defender of the voiceless and marginalized in society, and she has demonstrated the force of vigorous dissent.”

That vigorous dissent has also been used to defend Harvard. Last year, Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court’s ruling that declared Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy unconstitutional and limited affirmative action in college admissions. Sotomayor detailed Harvard’s history of slavery, racism, and discrimination and cited the University’s report on the legacy of slavery.

Sotomayor most recently presided over the annual Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School last November, judging the arguments of mock appellate cases presented by HLS students. Sotomayor previously judged the competition in 2018 and 2011.

Five Students Awarded $100,000 From Thiel

Five Harvard students were awarded $100,000 grants by the Thiel Fellowship on Thursday to pursue their startups. The only catch? They have to drop out.

The 2024 fellowship class of 20 students includes Adarsh S. Hiremath ’25, working on his company Mercor; Christoper G. Zhu ’24, Gavin J. Uberti ’25, and Robert S. Wachen ’24, working on Etched.ai; and Walden Yan ’24, who co-founded Cognition AI.

Founded in 2011 by Peter Thiel — a billionaire co-founder of PayPal — the fellowship is a two-year program for people under 22 who “want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom,” according to their website.

The fellowship awards an $100,000 grant which can be used at the recipients’ discretion, along with industry recognition and access to professional networks. The grant’s main condition is that the recipients drop out of school.

Cognition AI — for which Yan also serves as chief product officer — recently made waves when it introduced Devin, their artificial intelligence software engineer, which has significantly outperformed ChatGPT in certain tasks and could disrupt the software engineering industry.

With Etched.ai, Zhu, Uberti, and Wachen are working to build superconductor chips specialized for artificial intelligence. Hiremath’s project Mercor uses AI to streamline and automate the job recruitment process for both applicants and companies.

In a press release announcing the grant winners, Thiel — a Republican megadonor who has emerged as a thought leader in anti-establishment and libertarian circles — denounced the current state of higher education.

“Today’s universities are as corrupt as the medieval Catholic Church,” Thiel said in the release.

“The Reformation is underway.”

In an interview, Hiremath said he already dropped out of Harvard after completing his sophomore year to turn his full attention to Mercor, which he started in January 2023 alongside co-founders Brendan Foody and Surya Midha.

To date, Hiremath said Mercor has raised more than $3.6 million from venture capital firm General Catalyst and other investors.

“It was definitely the busiest semester of my life,” Hiremath said of his sophomore spring. “You could sort of compare it to doing a club that maybe takes 60 hours a week or 70 hours a week.”

“As it stands right now, I’m on an indefinite leave of absence and really, really excited to be working on Mercor and changing thousands of lives and creating opportunities around the world.” Hiremath added. “So for me, that’s an opportunity that’s so amazing and fulfilling that I just have to be working on it.”

economics, psychiatry and more.”

Shai-Li Ron ’24, the only student who attended the trip, wrote in a statement that she “saw this delegation as an opportunity to approach

the situation with action.”

“How can we at Harvard, and professors at Stanford, Dartmouth provide help instead of recreating the conflict,” she added.

The visit comes amid lingering tensions on campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. In December, Congress opened an investigation against Harvard, and six Jewish students brought a lawsuit against the University alleging administrative handling of antisemitism on campus. Late last month, two pro-Palestine student groups reposted an antisemitic cartoon on Instagram.Discussing antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, Kreiman wrote that he is concerned “the dialogue has stalled, that facts are neglected, and that people have become quite reticent to engage in academic discussion.”

Kreiman wrote that his key takeaway from the trip “was a sense of possibility.”

“Imagine a world where Arab boys and girls, Jewish boys and girls, and US boys and girls can work synergistically to tackle climate change, cure Alzheimer’s disease, or build the next generation of

AI algorithms,” he wrote.

During the visit, participants discussed numerous initiatives, including creating a center “fostering academic collaborations among the US, Israel, and Arab countries — creating a nexus of excellence in innovation and cutting-edge research,” Ron wrote.

On the trip, the group also met with academic counterparts at Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, and Hebrew University, as well as visiting sites of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Kreiman wrote that during one such visit, he was struck by his host’s “message of hope and optimism.”

“He pointed to Gaza, which is two kilometers away, and manifested that he wanted a future with peace, where his children could play with children in Gaza, where he could invite people from Gaza for dinner,” Kreiman added. “I found it remarkable that despite the dark times, there continues to be a strong consensus to seek peace,” he wrote.

his residency training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and remained a clinical fellow at Harvard until 1986. When Garber became provost in 2011, he was also named a professor at HMS and the Harvard School of Public Health.

“He’s someone who has led us for the last more than a decade with great wisdom, judgment, and exceptional leadership,” Daley said. “Alan brings a generosity of spirit to our community that serves our community very, very well.”

Harvard’s new president will inherit a number of issues raised by HMS affiliates over the past year, including allegations of research misconduct at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, recent protests regarding the war in Gaza, and ongoing litigation stemming from the mishandling of human remains at the HMS morgue. In addition to Garber, Daley noted that interim Harvard Pro-

vost John F. Manning ’82 — who became dean of Harvard Law School around the same time Daley became dean of HMS — is another strong leader in the University’s administration.

“I was delighted when my college classmate, class of ’82, John Manning, was asked to be the interim provost,” Daley added. “I’ve been very close to John, we’ve enjoyed tremendously getting to know each other and sharing a lot of our experiences as deans of the law school and the medical school.”

“We’ve got really, really sound leadership in Alan Garber and John Manning, and I look forward to working with them for years to come,” he added.

Daley said he believes that the next president should have a strong understanding of science and technology. Garber is the first person to lead the University with a degree in the sciences since James B. Conant, Class of 1914.

“I’ve not been shy for many years in saying that. I think scientific training and scientific expertise is incredibly relevant — especially in today’s world where so much of technology is prominent,” Daley said. “Many of the challenges that face our planet — whether it’s climate change or an aging population — certainly would benefit from leadership by someone with scientific expertise,” he added.

Daley, however, said the president should understand that science is intertwined with the rest of the University’s academic life.

“Technology has to exist in the embrace of ethics. Science has to be understood in social context,” Daley said. “Whoever is the president has to both respect science and promote it, but also appreciate the context of all this richness.”

Harvard Lags Behind on

ball programs, have no direct affiliation with universities or athletic programs, they are widely understood to quietly work with coaches and play a role in recruitment. Harvard has no such collective and, for now, seems intent on not having one.

Proponents of name, image, or likeness collectives — donor-funded groups that pay student-athletes according to NCAA rules — have frequently warned that if Harvard does not adapt to peer Division I institutions by establishing a collective, the College will risk losing top talent to other schools where athletes can earn more money.

Their worst fears were realized on Tuesday when star freshman basketball guard Malik O. Mack ’27 entered the transfer portal — a decision Mack was expected to make in order to explore opportunities for a six-figure deal to star on a team outside the Ivy League.

The collegiate athletics landscape was permanently changed in 2021, when the NCAA adopted policies that gave student-athletes the right to profit off their name, image, and likeness, following a landmark Supreme Court decision.

But as colleges and universities across the country have embraced NIL and supported alumni-led efforts to provide financial support for players, Harvard and its fellow Ivy League schools have refused to follow suit.

In the years since, the new policy, along with rules making it easier for athletes to transfer, has sparked nationwide debate about the role of NIL collectives in player recruitment and development. It has also placed Harvard in a disadvantageous position as its main selling point — the prestigious education offered by Harvard — is counteracted by the amount of money players could make elsewhere.

While these collectives, which primarily serve football and basket-

Last May, the school sent out a letter to donors distancing itself from a supposed attempt to create a collective, but one never materialized. This leaves student athletes to find NIL deals individually. If students were to receive money through an NIL collective, that money would be subject to review from the financial aid office in determining aid packages, according to College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo.

Richard Kent, a legal consultant to Student Athlete NIL — a group that runs NIL collectives for several schools — said while the Ivy League or Harvard can’t prohibit donors from forming a collective, the donors he’s spoken to about founding one have taken issue with the idea.

“I’ve talked to boosters of Ivy League schools, donors, boosters,” Kent said. “And I keep getting a similar refrain: we don’t have an appetite for this.”

Student First’

‘A

Several donors said that Harvard’s athletic program functions differently than athletics at schools with lucrative NIL collectives.

Thomas W. Mannix ’81, a former Harvard basketball player and donor to the Friends of Harvard Basketball, said he appreciates Harvard Athletics’ focus on the academic benefits of attending the school.

“Yes, you’re a basketball player or a football player or a hockey player, but you’re a student first, and I’ve always respected that,” Mannix said.

He drew a distinction between Harvard, which does not offer athletic scholarships, and other basketball programs, which have capitalized on their players without

compensating them.

“I think there’s been pride in the Harvard athletic department and the Harvard culture that the Ivy League has been able to compete in Division I sports without giving athletic scholarships,” Mannix said.

Chris F. Pizzotti ’08, a former Harvard quarterback, said he appreciates that Harvard can offer both a high quality education and an opportunity to play against Division I collegiate athletes.

“You’re getting a world class education and getting to compete at an unbelievably high level,” Pizzotti said. “And I think that trumps a lot of the short term gains of going to an NIL-dominated school.”

But for players like Mack, the ability to make a life-changing amount of money in college can outweigh the benefits Harvard has to offer.

Palumbo noted in an email

that Harvard treats athletics as a “co-curricular or extra-curricular activity” that contributes to a student’s development. “The choice of Harvard for varsity athletes is one that prioritizes the quality of the education and degree they earn,” Palumbo wrote. “The network of alumni, Harvard name, and the education received are among compelling reasons to be a student-athlete at Harvard.”

‘If Harvard Doesn’t Adapt’

The decision by Mack to enter the NCAA transfer portal comes amid months of debate about Harvard’s challenge to retain athletes amidst the allure of NIL opportunities at other colleges.

Philip C.B. Furse ’93, a former Harvard Football player and member of the Friends of Harvard Football, is concerned about forcing players like Mack to choose between short term income and an education that can lead to longer term success.

“Think about what you’re asking him and his family to do. One the one hand, he can stay and get a Harvard education,” Furse said. “But at the same time, I promise you he could probably go to a Kentucky, Duke, Carolina, or one of these really top places and could probably get with these NILs like hundreds of thousands to upwards of a million dollars,” he added.

Mannix, the former basketball player, said he was sympathetic to the individual considerations Mack might be making by exploring the option to transfer.

“I’m so respectful on a personal level of people’s emergencies, needs, desires, like whatever it is, I’m 100 percent on board with the freedom of him to make that decision,” Mannix said.

Prashanth Kumar ’21, who worked as the manager of Harvard’s tennis team during college, said Harvard has top tier talent, including Mack and others, who might be tempted by NIL money to transfer elsewhere.

“I’m just nervous that if Harvard doesn’t adapt, then we have the opportunity to lose these athletes,” Ku-

Eric A. Spiegel ’80, a former Harvard football player and donor to the football program, said he thinks while most Harvard recruitment wouldn’t be affected by the lack of a collective, in a few cases it might cause the school to lose out on re-

“I think some of these really talented players who can play major college football, I think, on the margin, some of them will now opt to go take the NIL path and not go to an Ivy,” Spiegel said.

Furse expressed dismay with the impact NIL deals have on athletes’ professional ambitions, saying that it incentivizes them to stay in collegiate competition.

“That’s why some of these kids aren’t even going pro now, because they actually make more money in college,” Furse said.

‘Not a Question of Money’ Alumni who spoke to The Crimson for this article had mixed opinions about starting a collective at Harvard.

Pizzotti expressed hesitation at

starting an NIL collective at Harvard because its creation could spark an “arms race” between schools. “I’m not supportive of starting a collective,” Pizzotti said. Michael H. Bassett ’64, a former Harvard football player, said he believes in the principles of NIL deals but is unsure how an NIL collective would fit into the current Ivy League model for recruiting athletes.

“They’re not coming for the money or the publicity,” he said. “When they come into the Ivies, they’re coming because they want to play and they want to be associated with that particular university.” Kumar, however, said he was confused that a collective has yet to be formed at Harvard.

“I don’t know exactly why one hasn’t formed because all the athletics programs have massive, massive donations — it’s not a question of money coming into the programs,” Kumar said. Spiegel said he would donate to a collective if it would help Harvard remain competitive. He noted that he values the Harvard network and has long donated to Harvard football and helped athletes get summer internships. “If a collective can help us bring in some better players, I definitely support it,” he said.

As Ivy League schools continue to hold out on establishing NIL collectives, some students are looking at other options.

At Dartmouth, basketball players voted to form a union earlier this year following a decision by a National Labor Relations Board regional official in February that the players are employees of Dartmouth. The vote came a year after one former and one current basketball player at Brown filed a class action lawsuit against the Ivy League for not providing athletic scholarships. Spiegel said that he believes the vote to form a union is partially in response to the lack of NIL collectives at Ivy League schools.

“This is students basically saying ‘OK, well I am playing the sport for the college,’” he said.

‘A Fairer Marketplace’

Gabby S. Anderson ’26, a player on the women’s basketball team, signed an NIL deal upon concluding her high school basketball career, and expressed her appreciation for being able to showcase both her athletic and artistic talents.

“My NIL experience has been wonderful for me personally, because it is also tied into my shoe customization business,” Anderson said. “I get to sell myself as not only a Harvard student, basketball player, but also as an artist.”

Harvard Athletics announced last July that it would use the INFLCR athlete app to help student athletes access media content to share on their own.

Fabiola Belibi ’26, a student track athlete, said she faced various obstacles procuring NIL deals.

“I have found it extremely difficult to secure NIL opportunities only because of the lack of visibility that is in the Ivy League — it’s bad,” Belibi said. Belibi said she believes the lack of visibility is because athletics ar-

en’t “highlighted in the Ivy League.”

“They do not invest in videographers and photographers at meets or games, it’s all student-run,” Belibi added Unlike other universities, the Crimson’s track and field official page is either student-run or run by a coach, according to Belibi.

“That’s unheard of at other, bigger sports universities,” she said.

“I think the biggest thing that could really help us is an NIL program and a social media team for the athletic side of Harvard,” she added. Thor G.C. Griffith ’24, a senior Harvard football player who will play at the University of Louisville for his fifth year of eligibility, said the potential to make NIL money at another school played only a small part in his transfer decision. “I wanted to go to the place that was going to develop me as the best football player and give me the best shot of going as high as I possibly could in next year’s draft,” Griffith said.

Griffith also said he thought a collective at Harvard might contribute with recruitment and would be good for the current players. He noted that NIL money would help players avoid “pinching pennies” at the end of the semester and give them an incentive to “put their all” into the program.

“It would definitely ease some of the burdens that come with playing Division I football and attending an Ivy League institution,” Griffith said.

Tyler J. Neville ’24, another senior on the football team who will play for the University of Virginia in his fifth year, also said players would appreciate a collective, but predicted that one wouldn’t be formed as it would cause “uproar” on campus.

“Being realistic, I know that’s not going to happen,” Neville said. Some alumni also expressed their frustration with the overall effect of NIL rules on college sports outside of Harvard and the Ivy League.

“When I talk to coaches at other universities, they are all unanimously saying that this is not a sustainable model,” Pizzotti said. “It’s robbing a lot of these coaches from the joy of coaching because they recruit and they feel like it’s a transactional activity.

For Mannix, all the debate around NIL in college athletics reflects growing pains as the NCAA adjusts from years of exploitative behavior from schools other than Harvard, that profited from players without paying them.

“I think you have to just accept the fact that when you break up a monopoly, nothing will be familiar and some of the things that you were familiar with that you liked are gone,” Mannix said, “But you hope that overall, it leads to what’s considered a fairer marketplace for everybody.”

In the Ivy League, Kent believes that one of the universities will eventually break through and form a collective.

“It’s impossible for nobody who is a donor at these eight schools to be interested in NIL,” Kent said. “It’s impossible.”

HUA Co-President Expelled From Fox Club

body co-president John S. Cooke ’25 this week over misconduct allegations.

The undergraduate leadership of the Fox Club expelled Harvard Undergraduate Association Co-President John S. Cooke ’25 from the organization on Wednesday over misconduct allegations.

The rare decision to remove Cooke as a member of the Fox comes less than one month before his term as Harvard’s student government co-president is set to

end. It was not immediately clear what the specific allegations were that prompted the club’s leadership to seek Cooke’s removal.

The Fox’s undergraduate board initially decided to remove Cooke during a Monday evening meeting, according to two people familiar with the situation. Cooke, however, denied the allegations when the board informed him of the decision on Tuesday — prompting Fox leadership to briefly delay the removal while they sought additional information about the misconduct allegations, one of the people said.

Rank-and-file members of the Fox learned about the decision on Wednesday when Cooke’s removal was finalized. Cooke did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Fox undergraduate board did not respond to an emailed

request for comment, and multiple members of the club declined to comment when reached by phone on Wednesday. No one answered the club’s front door when a reporter rang the door-

bell Wednesday evening. Cooke was elected HUA co-president alongside Shikoh M. Hirabayashi ’24 last spring.

The pair, who ran on a platform to “Make Harvard Home,” recent-

ly proposed an academic freedom petition to the undergraduate student body and hosted a student government conference for Ivy League schools.

The news of Cooke’s removal from the Fox comes shortly before the HUA’s election season is set to begin. Under an amendment passed in the fall, Cooke’s term as co-president will end on April 20.

Final clubs and the College have had a strained relationship in the past, and until recently, Cooke would have been ineligible to be in a final club while serving as the student body co-president.

Former University President Drew Gilpin Faust imposed sanctions on student members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations in 2016. The sanctions prohibited members of groups like the Fox from holding leadership posi-

tions in student groups or on sports teams, and rendered them ineligible for fellowships like the Marshall and Rhodes scholarships, which require an endorsement from the College. The sanctions first applied to the class of 2021 and were dropped in 2020 following a Supreme Court ruling that deemed Harvard’s sanctions sex-based discrimination.

The Fox Club’s decision to remove Cooke is the second controversy to face the organization in recent weeks. The Fox is also embroiled in a legal dispute with its neighbors over noise complaints after the club temporarily relocated to a residential neighborhood while its clubhouse undergoes renovations.

joyce.kim@thecrimson.com azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com

HUA Discussed Cooke’s Resignation in Meetings with Harvard DSO

BY CAM N. SRIVASTAVA AND WILLIAM Y. TAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Undergraduate Association executive officers discussed the possibility of Co-President John S. Cooke ’25 resigning during a meeting Wednesday night following his expulsion from the Fox Club over misconduct allegations, according to a person familiar with the meeting. But Cooke told the officers that he would not step down from his post as co-president, a person familiar with the meeting said. The Crimson reported early Thursday morning that the Fox Club — a single-gender Harvard final club — expelled Cooke over misconduct allegations, though the nature or details of the allegations against Cooke were unclear.

Cooke denied the allegations

in a meeting with the Fox’s undergraduate board on Tuesday, The Crimson reported. Cooke did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.

Shortly before The Crimson published its initial article, HUA officers discussed Cooke’s expulsion from the Fox and next steps with Andy Donahue — an administrator at the College’s Dean of Students Office and an adviser to the HUA — on Wednesday night.

According to an email obtained by The Crimson, the HUA and DSO held a follow-up meeting Thursday night, during which undergraduate student government leaders continued to express concern about Cooke’s position on the HUA.

At both the Wednesday and Thursday meetings, Donahue told the student government officers present that neither the DSO nor the HUA could force Cooke to resign. HUA executive officers spoke with Donahue for three hours during the emergency gathering Wednesday evening, during which they determined that the organization would remain silent on the allegations against Cooke. HUA officers and Donahue reconvened Thursday night. During the most recent meeting, the group backtracked — deciding instead to release a public statement on Friday.

Harvard Removes Skin Binding From Book, Apologizes

land, a 19th-century French doctor, took the skin from a female psychiatric patient’s back after she died.

Harvard wrote on Wednesday that the University is still researching the woman’s identity and is working toward respectfully laying her remains to rest.

“The Library is now in the process of conducting additional provenance and biographical research into the book, Bouland, and the anonymous female patient, as well as consulting with appropriate authorities at the University and in France to determine a final respectful disposition of these human remains,” the statement said.

were used for its binding.”

Harvard Library spokesperson Kerry Conley wrote in a separate emailed statement that the library regrets “two sensationalist blog posts” from 2014 — which were since deleted — describing the book in gleefully dark terms.

“While the media seemed interested in the morbid nature of the object, there were several people who objected to the tone of the posts and to the book. We agreed with the criticism and amended our blog posts,” wrote Conley.

The book was first given to Harvard in 1934 by John B. Stetson, Jr., Class of 1906. A now-missing memo by Stetson which accompanied the book revealed that Ludovic Bou-

The announcement follows a decade-long effort from rare book experts Paul Needham and John Lancaster calling on Harvard to remove the book from its holdings and repatriate the remains to France.Since 2014, the duo have corresponded with top administrators including former Harvard Presidents Claudine Gay and Lawrence S. Bacow, as well as faculty involved in the University’s ongoing repatriation efforts, urging them to take action on the book.

Houghton Library began restricting access to the book in 2015, according to a Q&A with Houghton’s Associate Librarian Anne-Marie Eze published alongside the University’s statement Wednesday. “We started placing restrictions on access in 2015 and instituted a full moratorium on new research access in February 2023,” Eze said.

“We have removed all images of the skin from the HOLLIS catalog, online blog posts, and other channels.”

Last week, Needham, Lancaster, and Rabbi Ruth M. Gais — Needham’s wife — penned an open letter advocating for the book’s repatriation which was published as an advertisement in Friday’s print edition of The Crimson. In an interview Wednesday, Needham accused Harvard of dragging its heels for years and suggested the University had to be prodded to take action on the book. “I do believe that their public statements are trying to suppress the fact that the real impetus for doing this came from outside Harvard, and that they refer to the human remains report, the Hammonds Report of September,” Needham said, adding that “it’s pretty clear that nothing happened until John Lancaster and I got in touch.”

In her statement, Conley wrote that Harvard’s own researchers were already aware of the sources cited in research sent by Needham and Lancaster to the University. Conley added that the removal is “part of the University’s larger project of addressing human remains in our museums and collections.”

“As President Larry S. Bacow noted when he announced the Steering Committee for Human Remains in the University Museum Collections back in 2021, ‘This important work is long overdue,’” she wrote. “We recognize that.”

madeline.proctor@thecrimson.com

A preliminary version of the statement obtained by The Crimson consisted of three main points: that the HUA had been made aware of the misconduct allegations against Cooke, had met with their DSO adviser about him, and will adhere to the HUA constitution in any next steps.

According to one person familiar with the meeting, Cooke was not present for the majority of the meeting, but joined towards the end after the group asked HUA Co-President Shikoh M. Hirabayashi ’24 to call him in.

During the meeting, HUA officers were advised to generally ignore broad Crimson inquiries about the organization, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that “Assistant Dean Donahue simply reminded students that they are not obligated to respond to the Crimson.”

But in a Thursday email obtained by The Crimson, Donahue told HUA executive team members that he was “incredibly disappointed that last night’s meeting was shared with The Crimson.”

“I was under the impression that what was happening and what was said would not leave the group or the space,” he wrote. According to the publicly available HUA Constitution and Bylaws, the process to remove an officer in power requires a recall election initiated by a petition signed by 20 percent of the number of student votes cast in the last election for that position.

Cooke and Hirabayashi won the co-presidency last year in an election with 1,954 total votes cast, requiring 391 signatures to reach the threshold for a recall election.

If a petition passes, then a recall election is held, in which two-thirds of voters must vote in favor of the recall for the officer to be removed.

The HUA also has the option to temporarily suspend Cooke — releasing a public statement of “charges” — while a team of students reviews the case and “render[s] a judgment.” If a supermajority of the team votes to “sustain the charges,” the officer remains suspended and the process goes to the recall election.

Harvard Kennedy School professor David J. Deming has stepped down from the HKS dean search advisory committee to become a candidate, according to two people familiar with the process.

The search for a successor to longtime HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf has narrowed to two internal finalists — Deming and Archon Fung, director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation — and several outside candidates, according to the two people.

HKS professor Iris Bohnet, a former academic dean at the school, was also an internal finalist for the role but withdrew her name from consideration.

Bohnet did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but her decision to pull out as a finalist for the position leaves two men as the internal candidates for the role.

While at least one of the external finalists is said to be a woman, the development raised concerns among some HKS affiliates about the level of diversity in the process. Harvard spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain did not deny that Deming and Fung are the internal finalists for the deanship in a statement on Thursday.

“The HKS Dean search is ongoing, and beyond that the University

added. Deming did not respond to a request for comment.

In particular, some faculty members said it is time for a non-economist to serve as dean. While Deming is an economist, Fung studies government and democracy.

Soroush Saghafian, a professor of public policy, said that “having a mixed balance of faculty members across different disciplines, different areas would help.”

HKS Dean Search Enters Final Stages

is not going to comment on speculation around potential candidates,” Swain wrote.

The dean search entered its final stages amid growing calls for HKS to end an 88-year streak of white, male deans dating back to the school’s founding. The search for the next leader of HKS began in September 2023 when Elmendorf announced he intended to step down in June 2024, after serving eight years in the role.

In the months since, the University has been consumed by controversy. But the turmoil at Harvard is not expected to delay the timeline for selecting Elmendorf’s successor.

A source familiar with the process said the search is “fully on

track.” The next HKS dean will inherit the Kennedy School at a particularly tumultuous time as it seeks to mend frayed relations with donors and ease tensions among students and faculty over the fighting in Israel and Palestine. Interviews with more than 20 HKS professors and lecturers revealed a faculty that was deeply divided over its two internal finalists for dean.

HKS public policy lecturer Francis X. Hartmann applauded Fung’s decisiveness as acting dean, a role he briefly held in 2015. Fung also served as academic dean from 2014 to 2018.

“One of the downsides of be-

ing an interim dean is that you’re going to sort of tiptoe around and be afraid to make decisions,” Hartmann said. “He didn’t do that.”

HKS public policy professor Maya Sen also praised Fung’s leadership of the Ash Center — one of the largest centers at the Kennedy School.

“Archon, in particular, I think, brings a really deep well of administrative experience,” Sen said. Fung wrote in an emailed statement that he was looking “forward to working with the next Dean of HKS whomever they are.”

Deming, who joined HKS in 2016, is newer than Fung to the school but has quickly risen through the ranks, and was appointed academic dean

Admissions Dean Pleased With 2028 Results

ELYSE C. GONCALVES AND MATAN H. JOSEPHY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

After Harvard was rocked by nonstop controversy last semester, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said his office was heartened to see that application numbers remained consistent with past trends.

“We were, by the way, very pleased to see regular action numbers,” Fitzsimmons said in a Thursday interview with The Crimson.

Some higher education observers speculated that Harvard might see a massive drop-off in applications after a tumultuous year for the University — including a loss at the Supreme Court, a donor revolt, and the resignation of former President Claudine Gay.

Instead, the University received more than 50,000 applications for the fourth year in a row and witnessed its admissions rate only jump slightly from last year.

Now, the College must shift from encouraging high school students to apply to convincing admitted students to join the Class of 2028.

Fitzsimmons said that “any

good admissions person” could see the College’s yield rate moving in either direction.

In the face of recent crises, there is no way to predict whether or not yield will rise or fall, he said.

The Class of 2028 — the first admissions cycle since the fall of affirmative action — forced Harvard to work closely with its lawyers to ensure it could adhere to the law in a substantially different admissions landscape.

“Over the summer, we made changes,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we were doing it absolutely to, not just the spirit, but the letter of the law.”

Many experts have predicted that the Class of 2028 will be less diverse than previous ones, a consequence of affirmative action’s fall last summer. However, Harvard will not release data on the racial composition of its newly admitted class until its makeup is confirmed — which will only happen after waitlist decisions are finalized, a process which may lead into the summer.

Harvard did, however, release some data about the socioeconomic composition of its accepted class. This year’s admissions cycle saw a 1.7 percent increase in Pell Grant-eligible admits from last year.

“I, as a first-gen student, of course, was particularly happy to see that and to see the Pell numbers,” Fitzsimmons said. “That is the result of a lot of hard work and a lot of recruiting.”

As Harvard shifted away from race-based policies, it has prioritized the recruitment of low-income and first-generation students. This year, the College joined the Small Town Outreach, Recruitment, and Yield consortium, a collection of universities that work to recruit applicants from rural backgrounds.

“If you care about making sure that talented people from all over the country and all over the world see that it’s possible to go to a great university like this — the financial aid is there, the opportunities are there — it can make a difference,” Fitzsimmons said.

“I don’t think anybody is more aggressive than Harvard is recruiting,” he added. During the interview, Fitzsimmons also sidestepped questions about the future of Harvard’s test optional policy, which is increasingly under scrutiny as peer schools return to standardized testing.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra told The Crimson earlier this month that

Harvard is still “in the midst of analyzing” whether it will extend the policy, and Fitzsimmons had nothing to add beyond Hoekstra’s comments.

Currently, the College has committed to remaining test-optional through the admitted Class of 2030. “Any decision like that is a University-wide decision,” Fitzsimmons said, acknowledging that a return to standardized testing would require approval at the highest levels of the administration.

“Certainly interim President Garber and the Harvard Corporation, I know, would be interested,” he said. “That’s way above my pay grade.”

Fitzsimmons, who is in his 38th year leading the admissions and financial aid office, did not indicate when he expects to retire.

“Not yet,” he said. “We’ll take it a year at a time.”

Instead, Fitzsimmons said that he believes in the importance of his work as dean at a time when the University is facing challenges on multiple fronts. “Harvard is never dull,” he said. “I love a crisis.”

elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com matan.josephy@thecrimson.com Harvard

from its first application cycle since the fall of affirmative action, silencing critics who speculated the University’s recent controversies would deter students from applying to the College.

Instead, the College received 54,008 applications for the Class of 2028, marking the fourth year in a row more than 50,000 prospective students applied for admission. While the total for the Class of 2028 was a 5.14 percent decrease from the year before, the figures are in line with past trends.

After applications to Harvard peaked with the Class of 2026, the number of students applying to the College has declined steadily. The Class of 2027 witnessed a drop in applications of approximately 7 percent from the previous year.

When the College reported in December a 17 percent decline in early applications, people who criticized Harvard’s handling of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel quickly claimed that the drop was related to the University’s ongoing controversies — despite Claudine

Gay’s controversial congressional testimony taking place over a month after the early action application deadline.

Harvard donor Bill A. Ackman ’88 — a billionaire investor and vocal critic of former President Claudine Gay — wrote on X in December that “it takes 400 years to build a reputation and only a few months to destroy it.”

But five hours after Harvard announced its decisions for the regular admission cycle, Ackman’s X account was dormant and the University’s critics were generally silent about the admissions data.

While Harvard generally had a strong showing on Thursday, it did still experience an uptick in its admission rate while a number of peer institutions like Yale and Dartmouth reported record-low admission rates.

“You never know from one year to another why applications, precisely why applications go up or why they go down,” William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, said in a Thursday interview. “It’s meaningful to look over a three to five year period. And that’s what you should pay attention to.”

Still, the fact that many peer schools witnessed increases in

applications while Harvard’s continued to fall indicated that the events of last semester could have had a small impact on the number of applicants. Is it also not yet clear that the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-conscious admission practices had an impact on applications to Harvard.

In an interview with The Crimson earlier this week, Dan Lee, founder of Solomon Admissions Counseling, explained interest in Harvard has remained high throughout the admissions cycle.

“We actually have not gotten a lot of questions regarding affirmative action. I think most clients still understand that it’s a very competitive landscape,” Lee said.

“In terms of interest in Harvard, it’s always been high so I don’t think that’s really changed this year,” he added. The socioeconomic data for the Class of 2028 also eased concerns regarding the demographic makeup of Harvard’s incoming class. Just less than 21 percent of accepted students are Pell Grant-eligible, a number consistent with figures provided by the College for recently accepted classes.

The stable representation of students eligible for Pell Grants may indicate that Harvard was

successful at recruiting and admitting low-income students — who disproportionately represent minority racial and ethnic groups — as a means of fostering a diverse class without the use of race-conscious admissions practices.

In a bid to expand its recruitment of rural students – many of whom tend to be low-income and come from communities with lower rates of college enrollment – Harvard also joined the Small Town Outreach, Recruitment, and Yield consortium. STORY is a group of colleges and universities that work to expand their recruitment efforts towards students from rural areas.

Harvard’s joining of STORY may indicate the shifting priorities of the admissions office in the wake of the University’s loss at the Supreme Court. Now that Harvard can no longer make use of race-conscious admissions practices, it is increasingly shifting its focus toward the recruitment of low-income students.

Whether that effort has ultimately succeeded, however, will remain unknown for several more weeks. Harvard will only release data on the racial composition of its admitted class later into the summer.

For legal reasons, the College

in 2021. He also serves as Kirkland House faculty dean.

HKS public policy lecturer John D. Donahue called Deming a “fantastic academic dean.”

“He took his job seriously,” he said.

HKS professor Mathias Risse, however, said he would not back Deming for the deanship.

“I feel very strongly that Harvard would send a bad message if we appointed the third white male economist with a Harvard Ph.D. in a row,” Risse said. “And let me just add that I have found David Deming difficult to work with as academic dean.”

“My specific concerns are known to the people who need to know, including himself,” Risse

Donahue called for the school to “double down” on its founding mission of public policy and government. Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad also said that having another economist as a dean “is a concern.”

“We’ve seen the limits of economics as a discipline in terms of addressing some of the cultural issues that are animating international affairs,” he said. “Economists don’t often have good solutions to such problems.”

Sen said “someone like Archon who’s a political scientist and has a really interesting background in normative political theory would be a very interesting choice.”

“He would bring sort of a different intellectual viewpoint to the school,” she added.

Still, Hartmann said Deming was “much broader than an economist.”

“It felt to me as if he never used exclusively the prism of economics,” he said.

“Some economists I think of as narrow,” Hartmann added. “David was not narrow.”

william.mao@thecrimson.com dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS FROM PAGE 1

College Accepts 3.59% of Applicants

England, 16.2 percent from the South, 11.4 percent from the Midwest, and 0.4 percent from external U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In addition, the Class of 2028 accepted 254 applicants from Massachusetts, the most of any state, followed by California, New York, and New Jersey.

“We think it’s very important for us to do our part in educating future leaders of Cambridge, Boston, of the state of Massachusetts,” Fitzsimmons said. “We take that very, very seriously.” Harvard also joined the Small Town Outreach, Recruitment, and Yield consortium — a group of universities aiming to recruit applicants in rural communities — following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. The Class of 2028 is also “unusually international,” Fitzsimmons said. More than 15 percent of accepted applicants are international students, hailing from 94 countries. Canada, the United Kingdom, and China are the top three most represented countries.

said it must wait at least until after the May 1 deadline for students admitted to the Class of 2028 to accept or reject their offers, in order to comply with the requirement that Harvard does not look at race data in its admissions process.

The results of that demographic release will provide the most insight into whether Harvard will be able to successfully maintain the racial diversity of its accepted classes without the explicit consideration of race.

But Harvard might find itself in a lose-lose scenario no matter what the data shows about the Class of 2028’s racial and ethnic composition.

Should the proportion of underrepresented minority groups within the Class of 2028 drop substantially compared to results from past years — an outcome that some experts have predicted — it would indicate that the University is complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Models produced by experts hired by Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions, the anti-affirmative action group that sued the University, show that such drops would have been likely in past classes had Harvard admitted them without the consideration of race.

The College also offered 21 veterans admission, while a total of 41 students expressed interest in the Reserve Officers Training Corps — a training program that prepares for service in the military. This is the fourth class admitted under test-optional policies, where applicants can choose not to submit standardized test scores. While multiple other colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown, have returned to requiring testing, Harvard will remain test-optional through the Class of 2030.

In the interview on Thursday, Fitzsimmons maintained that the office has “nothing new to report” as to when they will announce the College’s future plans.

The Class of 2028 will be invited to campus from April 14-15 for Visitas, the two-day annual program for admits. Students have until May 1 to accept or deny their offer of admission to join the Class of 2028.

elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com matan.josephy@thecrimson.com

The result would also serve as a failing grade for the University’s new recruitment practices, showing that even efforts to bring in low-income applicants could not supplement the affirmative action policies of the past.

But if the University’s demographic release indicates that the Class of 2028’s racial composition remains consistent with past admitted classes, it would signal a victory for Harvard’s recruitment and admissions reforms following the Supreme Court decision. It would also, however, invite heightened scrutiny from groups opposed to affirmative action, including Students for Fair Admissions. Harvard might face additional litigation if anti-affirmative action organizations have any reason to believe the University is not complying with the law.

As the present admissions cycle comes to a close, experts, admissions officers, and applicants will wait for the release of demographic data for the Class of 2028. But, for now, Harvard has successfully weathered a challenging first application cycle post-affirmative action.

elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com matan.josephy@thecrimson.com

Keep Politics Out of the Houses

NEUTRALITY should extend to institutional subsets of the Harvard community, such as the Houses. Lowell’s recent disaffiliation from a panel on discrimination was the right decision for this moment.

These days — as the U.S. Congress, the Department of Education, and multiple federal lawsuits have all set their eyes on Harvard — the University is no stranger to controversy.

This time, the culprit isn’t a shadowy administrative body, nor a top bureaucrat – it’s Lowell House, one of Harvard’s 12 residential homes.

Last week, the Lowell House Faculty Deans and the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics both withdrew their sponsorship from a panel on Islamophobia and antisemitism, after the event drew fierce public backlash.

Critics cited the panel’s lack of kosher food, despite catering to Halal-observant Muslim students; past remarks from the panel’s moderator and speakers; and the ideological makeup of the panel, which contained no publicly unambiguously Zionist panelists, yet both a pro-Palestinian speaker and moderator.

We can understand the frustration. In an era where discourse has become increasingly fractured across campus groups, the proposed panel was po -

litically slanted with barely a patina of viewpoint diversity.

But the focus on the panel’s ideological slant misses the point. The real problem with the event was Lowell’s bizarre institutional support of it.

Harvard’s residential houses are a unique quirk of our University and exist for an important singular purpose: to foster a supportive smaller sub-Harvard community for their inhabitants. Social events accomplish this goal. Politicized ones do not.

To be clear, Harvard’s Houses should continue offering their communal spaces to students and groups seeking to host events — no matter how frustratingly divisive they may be — since doing so is valuable for the paramount exchange of ideas on college campuses. But lending their financial support and institutional backing to political events is not only an inappropriate use of resources — it is completely orthogonal to their mission.

Lowell was wise to withdraw their support from the event. What happens tomorrow when another group requests the House’s institutional support for a panel that is even more controversial? Is Lowell truly prepared to sponsor every event that students suggest? If they aren’t, how do they approach the impossible calculus of determining which events earn the House’s official stamp of approval? Who gets to decide what political identity Lowell will assume?

Rather than wading into the political tempest, residential houses and student resource centers need to adopt institutional neutrality stances for

political issues outside their purview — just like the University must writ large. Doing so will protect our school’s ability to serve as a fair, open, and careful forum for campus discussion.

Importantly, this strong form of neutrality need not extend to academic organizations like the Safra Center, the other initial cosponsor of the Lowell event: Discussions of politically contentious issues squarely belong in academic centers and these forums must not be neutered by a commitment to neutrality.

As the culture wars rage, and universities find themselves reevaluating their speech and academic freedom policies, the twin priorities of enabling discussion and remaining neutral are vital. Our campus benefits from open discourse, and any public discussion can result in greater understanding, especially in trying times when factionalism appears rampant.

But more expression need not be synonymous with a House’s seal of approval. Harvard has thousands of undergraduates; it would be impossible to fit them into just 12 political homes.

–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.

When It Comes To Free Speech, the Editorial Board Is All Talk.

Harvard has little difficulty professing its commitment to the free exchange of ideas.

It has a harder time putting that principle into practice.

On Wednesday, a scheduled panel entitled “Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and Religious Literacy” was canceled after Lowell House and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics pulled official support amid public backlash.

Because the Editorial Board calls for unattainable balance in the name of ideological diversity and censoriousness in the name of neutrality, we dissent.

The planned event was advertised as a discussion of religious bigotry and literacy. The intended panelists were a professor of Modern Jewish studies at the Harvard Divinity School, a Ph.D. student focusing on the history of religion, and another Ph.D. student studying Islam. In other words, all three were more than qualified to engage in an academic discussion of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Yet, today’s editorial suggests that the panelists’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a related, but distinct issue — compromise their scholarly expertise on the study of religion.

Discourse is not synonymous with debate. Events that bridge divides between disciplines — in this case, theology, history, and philosophy — or elucidate connections between different forms of hate can be deeply educational.

In a time in which misinformation about Judaism and Islam abounds, the voices of these panelists could have been clarifying or thought-provoking. Instead, they went regrettably unheard.

OP-ED STAFF EDITORIAL

The Board has correctly lamented the state of

dialogue on our campus and urged students to learn across differences. When an expert panel attempts to convene for that purpose, however, our colleagues fail to defend it.

Even if you share the Board’s concerns that the planned event would not have featured sufficient viewpoint diversity, that’s hardly a reason to endorse pulling institutional support — much less at the eleventh hour. No panels or speaker events evenly represent every viewpoint on an issue, nor must they.

Harvard Creates Leaders That

BY KATIA M. ANASTAS

As the leading academic powerhouse of the Western world and an institution known for producing global leaders, Harvard cannot separate itself from the crisis of liberalism in the United States.

There is a steep decline in institutional faith in the U.S. Mistrust is mounting in everything from Congress to higher education and even organized religion.

Amid shifting public opinion, it is crucial that Harvard recognize the ways in which the ivory tower ethos still prevalent at elite universities fails to produce capable leaders. Specifically, these universities’ homogeneously liberal environments cause them to overrepresent orthodox liberal viewpoints and normalize ideological stances seen by much of the nation as extreme, leaving the middle ground undervalued.

Just last week, a panel on Islamophobia and antisemitism scheduled to take place in Lowell House was canceled after students expressed discontent in large part owing to the panel’s ideological composition. Though the panelists — two scholars who study Judaism and one who studies Islam — were experts on the issues at hand, they

were shouted down. This isn’t a simple case of left versus right. But it speaks to a broader culture that Harvard’s political homogeneity seems to feed: When we rarely encounter views different from ours, our ability to disagree atrophies. That’s why, for the opponents of the Lowell House panel, personal politics outweighed an opportunity for real discourse. This is just the most recent instance of opportunities for fruitful discussion being squashed on campus. These tendencies implicate serious problems for discourse and ideological diversity at the university, but the stakes are far greater than just academic freedom.

A lack of receptivity to a broad range of beliefs both results from and worsens the modern liberal’s detachment from public sentiment. In both their language and the policies they espouse, Democrats have alienated great sects of the American public.

In 2008, Obama made the mistake of arguing that white, working-class Pennysylvanians “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” This only inflamed the hatred toward liberal elites that paved the way for flattering demagogues to seize a sizable portion of the electorate.

Today, the Institute of Politics will host a forum on diversifying college admissions — would we require that a vociferous opponent of diversity be included alongside the three academics featured for it to go forward?

Ideological diversity must be a goal that we strive for in the aggregate, not a mandate for every individual event. Dissenting students should be allowed and encouraged to organize their own panels with institutional support. But they shouldn’t be granted a heckler’s veto to wield at

will. This incident represents a failure — not on the part of dissenting students for voicing their criticisms, but of the University for bending to them, and of our Board for handing Harvard a blank check to do so.

Puzzlingly, the Board cites its support for institutional neutrality to argue that Houses and other non-academic spaces should not sponsor events that are deemed too political.

We agree that Harvard should steer clear of word salad statement-making. But the very reason our University should remain neutral is so that our students and faculty can be proudly opinionated. By yanking institutional support with little warning, Lowell House and the Safra Center broadcast a clear message about what viewpoints are preferred inside Harvard’s gates. Their decision is doubly troubling given reports of outside doxxing and hate mail that contributed to the event’s cancellation. Our Board has counseled against capitulating to malicious outside actors again and again. It’s a shame they faltered here.

Saul I.M. Arnow ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House. Violet T.M. Barron ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House. E. Matteo Diaz ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Grays Hall. Zakiriya H. Gladney ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Matthews Hall. McKenna E. McKrell ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Classics concentrator in Adams House. Itzel A. Rosales ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Stoughton Hall. Jasmine N. Wynn ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Thayer Hall.

–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.

Don’t Get America

Officials in the Biden administration have made similarly tone-deaf statements. ThenWhite House Chief of Staff Ron Klain retweeted a post arguing that inflation and supply chain issues were “high class problems.” This attitude toward pernicious economic conditions that really do affect low-income people has surely contributed to Democrats bleeding support in the last several years, with voters of color especially.

Rather than entrenching moralistic views, one chief aim of a political education should be to acquire the ability to grasp shifts in public opinion and craft policy accordingly. Future leaders must have the capacity to sympathize with the struggles and beliefs of Americans across all walks of life.

This idea is not new. Abraham Lincoln, for one, understood that “public sentiment is everything. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

Lincoln is right: Beyond understanding public opinion, successful leaders must garner popular support. This feat rests on crafting policy which centers a collective “we.” The New Left of the 1960s transformed political activity, inspiring modern identity politics. One scholar, Mark Lilla, has critiqued these identity politics for blinding

people to struggles and perspectives outside of their own self-defined group. It is now more vital than ever to combat the consequences of identity politics. Narrow self-identification fosters a culture of cancellation, limits the possibility of meaningful discourse, and obscures the numerous spheres of mutual interest that can unite Americans.

An elite education — indeed, any education — must instead steer us toward productively engaging with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. If Harvard’s academic environment continues to stifle debate and sow ideological extremism, how will its graduates engage effectively in politics?

In its continuing effort to create the next generation of American leaders, Harvard must reaffirm its commitment to free speech. This is the guiding light of our University in its pursuit of truth and in its students’ pursuit of knowledge. Harvard should readily solicit speakers, professors, and students whose beliefs fall on both sides of the aisle — hearing even the ost deplorable viewpoints is key to understanding public opinion in its entirety.

Stifling heterodox opinions isn’t just bad for discourse — it’s bad for creating effective leaders.

Katia M. Anastas ’27 is a Crimson Editorial editor.

ADDISON

JINA H. CHOE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Harvard Should Break up With the Harris Poll

BY MAYA A. BODNICK

Harvard is lending its name to a methodologically flawed poll that often promotes a rightwing political agenda.

Every month, the Harvard-Harris Poll (a partnership between Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies, The Harris Poll, and HarrisX) administers a public opinion survey that tracks Americans’ attitudes on a wide range of political and social issues. It’s no secret that the Harvard-Harris Poll is inaccurate and misleading. A number of experts from both sides of the aisle — including statistician Nate R. Silver, Democratic pollster Geoff D. Garin ’75, Republican pollster Chris Wilson, liberal journalist Josh M.J. Marshall, and conservative law professor Ilya Somin — have criticized the survey. FiveThirtyEight, a public opinion blog that aggregates political polls, recently ranked Harris Insights & Analytics in the bottom 50 percent of American pollsters.

Harvard aspires to be the top academic institution in the world — so why is the University attaching its name to a mediocre poll that has been blasted by political experts? Harvard should immediately disaffiliate from this flawed and biased survey.

Since 2017 — when Trump sympathizer Mark J. Penn ’76 became one of the poll’s co-directors — the poll has relied on leading questions. Unlike a proper survey, which asks unbiased questions in order to collect accurate and reliable information, Har-

vard-Harris poll questions tend to align with rightwing narratives and prompt respondents to lean toward conservative choices.

To see this ideological slant, let’s take a look at a question in last month’s poll about U.S. President Joseph R. Biden’s bipartisan immigration bill.

In the prompt, the poll regurgitated Republican talking points, citing the number of migrants that would enter the country each day, — a claim that is highly misleading — and stating that Trump has opposed the bill “to give the Biden administration any wins on an issue that he says they failed to do anything about.”

The question failed to specify a single positive consequence of the bill. Naturally, as a result of this skewed framing, the results showed that a majority supported Trump’s position of blocking the bill from passing.

There are other examples of extreme bias, too. In 2017, one question — asking whether the respondent supported the renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal — seemed blatantly designed to achieve an answer in support of renegotiation. The question assumed the premise articulated by Trump that Iran was secretly “building up their nuclear capability,” thereby violating the existing terms of the deal.

As The Intercept reported, the question ignored multiple verifications from the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran was, in fact, keeping up its

end of the bargain when the poll came out, instead propagating Trump’s one-sided narrative. The question asserted that some people wanted to let Iran’s violations “slide along,” while others preferred calling Iran out. Unsurprisingly, the poll found that 70 percent of respondents agreed with Trump’s decision to renegotiate the deal. In addition to ideologically slanted wording, the poll frequently lacks a “don’t know” option. “That’s going to force respondents with different views to pick a side at random,” criticized Will Jordan, a Democratic pollster. “But the numbers get shared as if they’re real attitudes.”

Furthermore, the poll often reports perplexingly contradictory results. In Dec., the poll simultaneously found that a majority of young adults believed Israel was committing a “genocide” and that the country was “trying to avoid civilian casualties.” Similarly, the poll results claimed that a majority of young people both believed that Hamas “would like to commit genocide” and that all of Israel should be surrendered to Hamas. These contradictions are bizarre and difficult to account for.

Finally, the Harvard-Harris poll sometimes sequences questions in ways that can confuse respondents. For instance, the Dec. poll also found that 67 percent of young adults agree that “Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors” — an eye-popping result. This finding aligned with

OP-ED OP-ED

To the Class of 2028: Congratulations!

Please pick Harvard. I might sound desperate to you. Perhaps I have reason to be — Harvard is having something of a public relations crisis, and this could understandably dissuade you from attending.

I remember the days long past when I was applying to college (last school year). I won’t assume anything about you, but I remember operating on a limited amount of information — acceptance rates and college rankings mostly. I can only imagine how the past months’ news would have affected my understanding of Harvard.

But there’s much more to Harvard than what the news — or even college rankings — can tell you. So allow me to share why you should choose Harvard and why, a year later, I’m still glad I did.

Much has been made of Harvard’s smaller applicant pool during its early acceptance round, but you were not chosen to fill extra empty spaces. You were chosen, not in comparison to who else applied, but on the basis of your individuality.

If Harvard were merely making a comparison, we would expect it to accept the exact same number of students every year — enough to fill all of its housing — but it doesn’t. Each student is accepted for who they are and what they alone can offer to our greater community.

Simply put, we want you.

If that doesn’t convince you — after all, you likely have other acceptances — here are some of the opportunities that await you at Harvard: the largest academic library in the world, thousands of dollars of funding for summer internships and studies abroad, access to classes at other renowned schools including Harvard Law School and MIT (and the Taylor Swift class), and the chance to join amazing extracurriculars (like *ahem* The Harvard Crimson).

But most importantly, Harvard brings you to a world where you can engage with perhaps the most intelligent and extraordinary mix of students from all corners of the world. And you are one of those students.

Also, Boston is objectively better than New Haven — in my opinion.

If Visitas isn’t everything that you hope for it to be, just remember everything that waits for you. This may all sound abstract, but I hope it conveys my passion. Maybe you don’t feel this passion yet. That’s okay. It was the same way for me.

Although I loved the idea of Harvard when I applied, I don’t think that I knew it well enough to truly love it. Sure, I was thrilled when I got in, but my actual experiences are why I can now say I love this school. I would never lie to you (that wouldn’t be very veritas) or say that Harvard is perfect. I am well aware that our public image is at a low point. Harvard undoubtedly has real issues — but I believe that they can be fixed, or in the short run, at least improved. And we need students like you to help us fix them.

Furthermore, the news coverage doesn’t accurately reflect the average student’s experience. Rather than relying on outsiders’ opinions, listen to what multiple students have said about the true state of campus. Attending Harvard gives you the chance not only to correct issues, but also to correct the public misperception of Harvard — to pursue veritas.

It may sound like a burden to go to a school that needs you to fix its problems — unique problems that are the price of being among the most prominent and scrutinized institutions in America. But Harvard’s mission is “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.”

However many problems Harvard has, society has far more. It is indeed a burden to fix problems, but something tells me that you’re a citizen-leader who’ll be fixing problems wherever you go.

BY ROHAN NAMBIAR

“Let’s cut to the chase: you can afford Harvard.” So claims Harvard’s website. But that’s not the whole truth.

In general, families making less than $85,000 a year pay nothing for their child to go to Harvard. And assuming modest savings of $50,000, Harvard’s net price calculator estimates a parental contribution of $3,000 for a family making $100,000, and $15,000 for a family making $150,000 per year.

So far, so good. But what about a family making $200,000?

They have to pay $37,000 a year, not including a student term-time work contribution. For a family here in Massachusetts, that’s 23 percent of their post-tax income — compared with 12 percent for the family earning $150,000 and just 3 percent for the family making $100,000. But worst of all, a family earning $285,000 has to pay a shocking 37 percent of their post-tax income. While less-well-off families face many obstacles to sending their children to Harvard, tuition and fees are thankfully not among them. On the other hand, those making over $500,000 per year can also pay without too much pain, especially given the opportunity to save over time.

But what about those in the middle?

Some might argue that a family earning $285,000 a year can indeed afford to pay almost 40 percent of their post-tax income — after all, they would still be far from poor after paying tuition. But that isn’t the point. The impact of such a massive cost to their standard of living is life-altering. It’s not a sacrifice a family should have to make to send their child to Harvard.

This week, Harvard will finish admitting the Class of 2028. While many high school seniors rejoice when they receive that coveted letter, some — even after reading that they “can afford Harvard” — will need to have a painful conversation with their parents about how they will possibly afford it.

At Harvard, which boasts an applicant pool of the best and brightest, cost should never im-

a narrative pushed by many conservatives: that leftists and young people are deeply antisemitic. But that question was placed immediately after multiple questions about affirmative action and could therefore have been easily misunderstood as a question about the way that Jews should be treated under an affirmative action system. Somin also pointed out multiple other flaws in that question — including its combination of two separate issues in the same response and use of complex terminology that may be unfamiliar to respondents who don’t follow politics. These problems further distorted the results of the question.

The Harvard-Harris poll misleads Americans with its flawed methodology and right-wing political agenda, but it’s unfortunately widely cited by mainstream media in potentially misleading ways. For example, the finding that young adults believe Jews are oppressors was cited all over the news. Of course, the most attractive part of the poll’s brand is the name “Harvard.” It’s time for the University to break up with the Harris Poll. This decision won’t fix the poll’s flawed methodology and practices, but Harvard shouldn’t lend its name and prestige to this dubious project.

–Maya A. Bodnick is a Government concentrator in Mather House. Her column, “Forging Harvard’s Future,” appears bi-weekly on Tuesdays.

pact a prospective student’s enrollment choice. While conversations on affordability often focus on those in most need of full financial aid, it also must include middle-class families being forced to shift their lifestyles or take out massive loans to attend.

For middle class students who do choose Harvard, their sacrifices ironically close doors. A mountain of debt can pull students away from careers in government, non-profits, or academia.

When middle class families must give up so much to pay tuition, it becomes more difficult for students to take full advantage of the opportunities this school has to offer. Whether being strapped for cash when going out with friends or forced to give up a preferred major in the humanities for a course of study that leads to more lucrative employment, the burden of tuition and loans is a heavy one. Cruelly, many middle-class students who do come to Harvard don’t get the same freedom and breadth of experiences as their classmates, despite their family’s huge sacrifice. There are solutions — more financial aid is the obvious one — but let me offer some more novel options.

We could also have a different graduated system, where families pay a fixed percentage of their income, with some cost floor and cap. The school could then redistribute who gets financial aid money. Is it really right that some families pay nothing while others pay almost 40 percent of their post-tax income? If families making less than $85,000 were asked to pay at least a small amount that could be easily borrowed and paid off following graduation, Harvard could reallocate that money to reduce others’ burden.

Don’t get me wrong. Harvard and its peer institutions do far better with financial aid than most other private schools, increasing broad access to higher education. But its claim to meet “100 percent of our students’ demonstrated financial need” doesn’t tell the full story.

Undergraduates Accused of Fiddle Theft

Local musician Calum T. Bell pressed charges against two Harvard students for the attempted theft of his fiddle from an Irish pub in Somerville last week.

Bell alleged that after his performance at The Burren, two students attempted to leave the pub with his instrument under their coats. He filed a criminal complaint against the students with the Somerville Police Department on Monday.

A video obtained by The Crimson showed a violin bow falling out of one of the student’s coats as they attempted to leave the Irish pub in an Uber. A second video showed the other student attempting to explain why they left the bar with the fiddle.

“We brought a fake fiddle to the club,” the student said. “We call it our slanjo.”

Megan D. Finch, who witnessed the attempted theft, called the students’ excuse “laughable.”

“Clearly, they just swiped the fiddle off of the table,” Finch said. “She stole the fiddle, and her friend had the bow under her jacket.”

Bell, who has played the fiddle all his life, said that his instrument is “priceless.”

“No amount of money represents what these instruments are,” he said. “It’s not about the money — I have such a connection with my violin.”

“This is theft of someone’s absolute livelihood,” Bell added.

The students — one of whom is an active Crimson editor — did not respond to requests for

comment. Calum said that after the incident, one of the students contacted him and apologized.

“God only knows whether it was sincere or not,” he said.

Cormac Crummey, an Irish musician who filmed the encounter, said that he had “never seen anything like it.”

Crummey said that when he first witnessed the event, he thought that the students were possibly “professional pickpockets.”

“It just turned out they were just college girls thinking they were funny and not really understanding the severity of what they were doing,” he said.

Bell said that in retrospect, he should have called the police on the students on Thursday night after the incident, but that in the moment he was “shaking” and “wasn’t really in my right mind.”

According to Finch, bar employees wanted to call the police but since Bell managed to recover his fiddle, the manager ultimately decided to not contact authorities. The Burren’s management declined to comment on Finch’s account.

Bell wrote in his report to the Somerville Police Department that the value of his fiddle was approximately $2,500-

$3,045.

“Four people have gotten their violins stolen this year that I know,” Bell said. “It happens all the time — and this is why I’m pressing charges.”

“I’m very so unbelievably fortunate that they didn’t actually get away with it,” he added. “But I owe it to the people who aren’t as fortunate that they are held responsible to the fullest extent of the law.”

Following the incident, Bell encouraged his followers on Facebook to complain about their behavior to the Harvard University Police Department.

HUPD spokesperson Steven

G. Catalano wrote that the incident is not an HUPD investigation, and declined to comment on the incident. Bell said he believes Harvard should discipline the students for their actions.

“I don’t think that this behavior obviously should be tolerated by Harvard,” Bell said. “I really think they should be expelled.” College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to comment.

“An example has to be made of this, he said. “People can’t just go and lift someone’s livelihood and potentially damage it.”

“It happened in one of the most prestigious colleges in the world — so if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere,” he added. “There should be more of a respect towards musicians and their instruments and their livelihood.”

sally.edwards@thecrimson.com asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com

Crummey said that he and other members of the “traditional Irish community” sent emails to Harvard about the incident to support Bell and to “raise awareness” about fiddle theft.

Gardner School Left Reeling After Principal Forced Out by District

BPS protocols.

had occurred by students, with references to “persistent bullying” and “sexual misconduct.”

The “vast majority” of them had gone unreported to the district, Skipper wrote.

Rather than providing closure, it left parents baffled over how a high-performing school considered a haven for families could have suffered from malfeasance “that could be so bad to require this incredible chaos at the school,” as one parent put it. Another described herself as “in deep despair.”

Since Herman was forced out, parents and some staff have continued to maintain that the former principal transformed Gardner for the better, commending her emphasis on restorative justice practices and mediating rather than punishing student conflict.

Many of Gardner’s teachers have kept quiet support for the change of leadership, arguing Herman treated her staff poorly behind the scenes and failed to consistently report student incidents, as required by BPS policy. With Herman gone and a new interim principal in place, Skipper wrote Gardner families and faculty could start to heal. But three months in, the school is reeling.

‘A Welcome Change’

Well before parents challenged the district on the removal of Herman, GPA staff had written to Boston Teachers Union alleging Herman fostered a “hostile” work environment.

In a November 2023 letter to the Boston Teachers Union obtained by The Crimson, the GPA Faculty Senate wrote that under Herman, there was “unclear and inconsistent” documentation of student incidents in violation of

“This dynamic creates a divisive environment and negatively impacts staff relationships, which then impacts our ability to provide support for our vulnerable population,” faculty wrote in the letter.

BPS policy dictates that bias-based misconduct must be reported to the school administration. Under state law, instances of bullying — which involves repeated acts that cause or threaten harm against a student — must be reported to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The letter also said “there is a general unease throughout the building,” and how a “significant number of staff members” operate “out of fear of administration.” Faculty called for an immediate formal evaluation of Herman.

“Though typically the Governing Board would be the next step to address all of our concerns, we

have come to the union instead out of our fear of retaliation and lack of action from administration,” the letter added. Some GPA teachers and staff said at the February meeting testified they had personally experienced verbal harassment from Herman.

GPA learning specialist Stephanie Wing said at the meeting that she supported the continued tenure of Katherine Atkins Pattenson — the current acting principal.

“Ms. AP consistently exhibits a calm and professional demeanor, which has provided staff with an opportunity to engage in difficult conversations, ask questions, and provide suggestions and feedback, which is a welcome change from our previous administration,” she said. Herman defended her staff treatment and emphasized her commitment to students.

“When you hold people to an ex-

tremely high standard, they don’t always appreciate you,” she said. She added that BPS’s allegations were “full of misrepresentations, omissions of truth, lies.”

“Anyone who’s ever worked with me or for me,” she added, “would just say that this kind of behavior is just not who I am.”

‘The Atmosphere is in Mourning’

To many parents, and a number of staff members, the allegations were completely at odds with their perception of the woman who helmed Gardner for nearly 20 years, a contrast to the district’s famously high turnover. Over a two-day period, The Crimson spoke with parents dropping their children off and picking them up from school for their perspective on the recent tumult. All of the 13 families who were approached, many interviewed in Spanish, disagreed with the deci-

sion to remove the principal. Parents brought up incidents where Herman had personally helped them when they faced financial and other barriers, including providing direct support with summer programming and covering school-related expenses. They criticized the district’s decision to remove her with little communication and in spite of her widespread support.

“They removed the principal from us overnight,” Ramirez, the GPA parent, said in an interview in Spanish.

“Because of this our school came undone — the school isn’t the same now,” she added. A Boston Public Schools spokesperson did not respond to comment for this article.

“The Gardner Pilot Academy under Erica and Joe operated like no other school,” said Jean Power, another parent.

Power said that, under Herman, the Gardner had helped pay for the funerals of school family members who died during the pandemic, and started an adult education program to teach English and job skills to families in need.

“These are life-changing things,” she said, noting the school’s contrast with the reputation of the district, which was under threat of a state takeover.

In an interview, Councilor Elizabeth A. “Liz” Breadon echoed the parents’ sentiments.

“Principal Erica Herman and Vice Principal Joe Sara are dedicated educators who’ve given many, many years of service to Boston Public Schools,” she said.

“It’s a great loss to the community and the Gardner Pilot Academy that they have been suspended.”

Asked how the school can or should move forward, another parent, Hermelinda Torres, said she wasn’t sure.

“It would be wonderful for Ms. Herman to return,” she said in Spanish. “We’re trying to take in everything that happened, but it’s not easy.”

jina.choe@thecrimson.com jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com

A local musicion pressed charges against two Harvard students for the attempted theft of his fiddle at an Irish pub in Somerville. A. SKYE SCHMIEGELOW — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Gov. Healey Puts Limits on Shelter Stays

OVERFLOW. Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 announced restrictions on families’ stays in some state-run homeless shelters.

BY LAUREL M. SHUGART CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Fat its maximum capacity of 7,500 families since November of last year. The program currently faces a $224 million deficit.

“We have said for months now that our system is at capacity, and we do not have the space, providers, or funding to continue expanding,” Emergency Assistance Director General Scott Rice said in a Monday press release.

State legislators are also working to limit the length of time that families are able to stay in the overflow sites.

Both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate versions of the state budget for Fiscal Year 25 included provisions to place a 9 month limit for stays in all Emergency Assistance shelters, with the potential for extension.

But not everybody is on board with cutting down on the amount of time families can stay in emergency shelters.

State Representative Michael L. Connolly, a Democrat whose district includes the East Cambridge overflow shelter, said that placing limits on stays without assisting families with finding other housing solutions will only cause more harm.

“If you had guarantees and protections and amplified supports, and if you had mapped out all the numbers, and you could demonstrate how people will just

move through shelter into permanent housing,” Connolly said, “then the notion of a time limit might be fine.” “But to have a time limit and not have all of the other pieces to ensure that you have a working system doesn’t make sense, and ultimately is going to create a negative burden on the individu-

als, on the system as a whole, and on the service providers and advocates,” he added.

laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com

Campaign to Fire Graham & Parks Principal Causes Parental Rift

Greer facing a Sunday deadline to notify Smith about whether or not her contract will be renewed.

The campaign to fire Graham & Parks Elementary School Principal Kathleen M. Smith has divided parents at the school ahead of a Sunday deadline for Cambridge Public School leadership to notify Smith about whether her contract will be renewed.

For months, an anonymous group of parents called the G&P Caregiver Coalition has accused Smith of fostering a toxic workplace environment and failing to communicate with parents. Last week, the coalition published an open letter in the Cambridge Day demanding that district leaders fire Smith.

But the coalition itself came under fire on Thursday in an email from a second anonymous group called “Caregivers and Children of Color at Graham and Parks School” to members of the School Committee and CPS Superintendent Victoria L. Greer.

A representative said the group contained around 20 parents, though The Crimson was unable to independently verify the group’s membership.

The email comes amid a tumultuous week for CPS, with

Though Greer hired an outside law firm to investigate the toxicity allegations against Smith in January, it is unclear whether the probe will wrap up prior to the Sunday deadline. Greer herself is also facing widespread criticism from parents, and School Committee members met Tuesday in a closed-door session to discuss whether to renew her own contract. If both Greer and Smith leave the district, it would be a stunning shake-up of the district’s top leadership. In their email, the group defended Smith and accused the coalition of only representing white parents, referencing a School Committee meeting last week in which several parents called for Greer to take action against Smith.

“This week, we watched the School Committee meeting and saw that the group advocating for this removal is made up of white or white-adjacent parents speaking on behalf of an entire community of caregivers,” the email read.

“While we believe that these parents want the best for the children at Graham and Parks, they cannot speak from our lived ex-

them through.” During the 90-minute Zoom event — sponsored by a range of local organizations including the Cambridge Education Association, which represents Cambridge educators — Lisa Guisbond, executive director of Citizens for Public Schools, urged listeners to support the bill, called the Thrive Act.

Several teachers said the MCAS has had detrimental effects on their classroom environment, especially for students with higher-needs.

“What this has done to curriculum is it has pushed pacing, it has pushed breadth more than depth. What is gone now is project based learning, deep inquiry thinking, critical reasoning,” said Betsy Preval, an English teacher at Cambridge Street Upper School.

perience,” the email continued. “They cannot understand the stakes of how an inequitable education harms our children and their futures.”

In a Thursday email, a representative for the Caregiver’s Coalition wrote that they are “a diverse group, including people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and immigrants. We have different religious, cultural, and educational backgrounds, and a range of economic means.”

They added that the more than 100 signatories to a Decem-

ber petition that raised concerns about Smith’s leadership “are an even larger group that is also reflective of the G&P Community.”

The Caregivers and Children of Color defended Smith’s efforts to address the racial achievement gap, which has been pervasive across Cambridge schools. According to Graham & Parks School Council parent member Christian Henry, the elementary school ranks last in the district for supporting learning among African American students.

In the Thursday email, parents

praised Smith for “implementing a new curriculum to close this equity gap” at Graham & Parks. “For black and brown families, Graham and Parks has been on the losing end of public education for too long,” the email read. Though the group remained anonymous, Graham & Parks parent Isabella C. Ehrlich independently echoed their concerns in a Friday open letter in the Cambridge Day, opposing the coalition’s “relentless campaign against Principal Kathleen Smith’s leadership.”

that is predominantly white and wealthy,” Montero said. “If you see predominantly low scores, what you know is that it tends to be a community of color, it tends to be working class, and it’s phenomenally underfunded.”

“You don’t need to administer a test to know those things,” he added. He said that MCAS is not built to adequately measure student growth and proficiency, specifically pointing to his experience teaching multi-language learners and students who have experienced significant interruptions in their education.

“I am particularly concerned that the voices of brown and black families, especially those who do not enjoy socioeconomic privilege or English as their first language, are unheard,” she wrote.

“We cannot allow a small, privileged group to direct the future of our school based on their perspectives alone,” Ehrlich added.

The anonymous group also suggested that the coalition’s demands were related to Smith’s focus on addressing racial inequities.

“Demanding a change in leadership — with a principal who is trying for the first time in decades to close this achievement gap — feels targeted,” they wrote.

The coalition objected to this charge, writing in their Thursday email that their “concerns about Dr. Smith have nothing to do with her goal of decreasing gaps in test scores at our school.”

“The school and district can close equity gaps without empowering leaders with a record of toxic and retaliatory leadership,” the coalition added. “We believe that such leadership will undermine rather than further our shared goals.” darcy.lin@thecrimson.com emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com

could not sleep the night before. “I don’t have anxiety. But the night before, I was so nervous. I couldn’t fall asleep. I felt nauseous,” Rosenberg said. “Maybe subconsciously, I realized that my graduation was depending on this test, and I’m not a good test taker.”

Sam Cohen, a Cambridge parent and a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center, said high-stress tests like the MCAS harm both students’ physical and mental health.

“These tests create a stressor without the payoff for growth. Layering that on an already fragile population contributes to poor mental health of young folks in our communities,” Cohen said.

On

Montero also said the exams were a faulty metric for evaluating school performance and in-

Because schools do not receive MCAS results until the following academic year, Chris Montero, a history teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School said the test fails to provide educators with any “pedagogical value,” like measuring mastery of concepts taught in class. “We are not able to address in our instruction what it is that the test is showing us. It is useless,” he said.

stead reflected pre-existing racial and economic disparities. MCAS results in Cambridge have consistently shown a wide achievement gap between Black and white students. “It shows if you get high scores, that chances are, it’s a district

“They managed to pass classes that they struggled to pass previously, they managed to get the credits that they need to get, they managed to fulfill all the requirements needed for a high school diploma,” he said. “The one thing that keeps them from getting that diploma is the MCAS.”

Samantha Rosenberg, a junior at CRLS, said that when she had to take the MCAS for her graduation requirement in 10th grade, she

Preval said that the MCAS only served to exacerbate existing inequalities within the school system. “If you are marginalized in multiple facets of your identity, the system is literally designed to not see you be successful,” Preval said. “It is time for the MCAS to go,” she added.

emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com

State officials are looking to set limits on stays in some state-operated family homeless shelters. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Parents are divided over a campaign to fire the Graham & Parks Elementary School principal.

FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Teachers, parents, and students advocated for ending the requirement to pass the MCAS during an online forum. JOEY HUANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

In Harmony: Women’s History Month Vignettes through Song

Spring has sprung, and it’s Women’s History Month. As we (and the flowers) turn our faces toward the sun, what better to do than listen to music made by powerful, talented, beautiful women? Here’s how The Crimson’s Arts Board celebrates the symphony of female voices that make this month all the more special.

“Girls Against God” by Florence + The Machine

This month, I’ve been thinking about being a girl. How much I love it. How I love to giggle and to cry. How I love to howl along to music while I fix my hair or do my makeup or lie on the ground and stare at the ceiling. I’ve been thinking about how I was a girl once — how I’ll always be a girl.

So naturally, this month, I’ve been thinking about “Girls Against God” by Florence + The Machine. “Oh, it’s good to be alive, crying into cereal at midnight,” Florence Welch wails over a lonely guitar. Later in the song, she declares: “Oh, God, you’re gonna get it, you’ll be sorry that you messed with us.” In just under five minutes, Welch turns anger into beauty, pain into love. She yells at the world and thanks it for its beauty. Because who could do that if not a girl?

To all the girls who read this, I urge you to give “Girls Against God” a chance. Let the music fill you with power, grace, ambition. Let it take over your body, and in turn, let yourself do all the things you thought you couldn’t. In a world that expects silence, make them listen. Be a girl against God.

“Best Friend” by Laufey

My sister is three years younger

than me, five inches taller than me, and — as of right now — halfway across the world, back home in Singapore. We are incredibly different people, and we take pride in that, which is why when Spotify told us that we had 99% music compatibility, we were both pretty shocked. But that’s also why all her music recommendations tend to resonate with me. When she sent me a link to “Best Friend” with the accompanying text “thought of u,” I had high hopes.

I suppose it makes sense that Laufey wrote this about her twin sister, Junia, because she perfectly captures the exasperation and affection that exists between my sister and me. The lyrics are so prescient it’s creepy. “I promise that I love you / Even with that hairdo,” Laufey sings, as if she was there to watch my sister cackle at me when I shaved all my hair off at 17. You can almost hear the smile in Laufey’s voice as she croons along to the smooth, jazzy tune, one that belies the palpable exasperation that exists in the lyrics — “You drive me half insane,” Laufey admits, even as she concedes that “a universe without you would be thoroughly mundane.” It’s such a precious song to me because it is exactly how female friendships are, be it with my sister, or even with my other “Best Friends” — a lot of fighting, a lot of making fun of each other, but ultimately, a begrudging and all-consuming love and affection. Alicia, if you’re reading this, you piss me off more than anyone else I’ve ever known — I miss you!

“mad woman” by Taylor Swift

A track diving into the experiences and perception of feminine rage, this song is full of sharp lyrics set to a melancholy piano instrumental and soft, electronic beat. Swift doesn’t shy away from acknowledging a tendency towards anger, singing, “Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile? / Or does she mouth, ‘Fuck you forever’?” in the first verse. Her vocals are

breathy yet clear, and her lyrics pack a punch. She shines a light onto countless common experiences of managing your reactions, being painted as a monster, and feeling the pain of being attacked by other women. The repeating lines, “What a shame she went mad / No one likes a mad woman / You made her like that” convey the frustration of not being allowed to have feelings and of how women get villainized when they do. She highlights internalized misogyny when she sings, “And women like hunting witches too / Doing your dirtiest work for you,” portraying the role of women in upholding reductive, patriarchal views. The track’s mellow tempo and Swift’s delicate background vocals contrast with the pointed lyrics, mirroring the seething anger that women often have to repress at risk of being called crazy, or mad.

“Lena Grove” by Eliza McLamb

“Being alone is freedom to me now / I sit with myself in darkness / And when I can’t find where the light is / I look for a beautiful thing / And recognise a piece of it in me” – “Lena Grove” by Eliza McLamb When I was growing up, I always identified as an extrovert. Honestly, I was probably just scared of being alone.

With my first year of college came the typical wave of isolation that characterizes a firstyear in a new place far away from home. I’d spend long September evenings socializing and then burn out, retreating to my dorm in the Yard, shutting off all the lights, and blasting the same four songs on repeat for hours, just clinging onto their consistency. Eliza McLamb’s “Lena Grove” was one of these four lifelines. I think young women are often taught to be accompanied — whether by a parent, a guardian, a boyfriend, or a pack of friends. Not many of us are taught how to be alone. As I stared up at my dorm string lights and McLamb affirmed to me — like a big sis-

ter advising me through my JBL Flip — that “it is through love you are sustained / You are self-contained,” her message started to sink in. Slowly, the time I spent with myself grew just as meaningful as the time I spent with others. Slowly, the isolation got easier until one day, I looked around and realized I cherished it after all.

“Who Says” by Selena Gomez & The Scene

As an avid Disney Channel fanatic, I admired Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato, watching their journeys as actors eventually lead to launching successful musical careers.

Although the three of them collectively released songs about the simplistic joys and struggles of young love, one song that was never tethered to a romantic relationship of any kind was “Who Says” by Selena Gomez & The Scene, released in 2011.

In the age of the rapid growth of social media, women are often met with unrealistic beauty standards and twisted bodily perceptions. However, “Who Says” was one of the earliest exposures I had to feeling confident in my own skin. In fact, it is the first song I ever added to my own Spotify playlist titled “childhood.” For me, listening to “Who Says” is an emotionally immersive experience, my own confidence slowly blossoming with the series of rhetorical questions in the lyrics, such as, “Who says you’re not star potential? / Who says you’re not presidential?” These powerful questions comprise the majority of the pop song and are meant to devalue every form of criticism one has received, allowing the listener to feel a sense of empowerment as their insecurities begin to vanish.

As many young women in my generation grew up looking up to Selena Gomez as a role model, the impact of hearing a message of empowerment delivered through a pop song by such a celebrated figure can be profoundly influential. Even since releasing

“Who Says,” Gomez has stayed true to the core message of the song, constantly inspiring young women in interviews on body positivity and self-love.

“Boys in the Trees” by Carly Simon

While many know Carly Simon from her landmark 1972 hit, “You’re so Vain,” I first met her through her softer, introspective commentary on the female experience: “Boys in the Trees.” The track lays bare the unspoken experience of growing up as a girl, already feeling the constraints of her gender. It takes the listener along for an exploration of her own coming-of-age through the lens of later womanhood’s insight. Cradled by the simple, nostalgic strumming of her guitar and clear, softly impassioned vocals, the lyrics confront listeners with poignantly familiar commentaries on an internalized female experience juxtaposed with the freedom of boyhood. Yet Simon’s dramatic lyrical introspections on themes of guilt, innocence, passion, solitude, and tacit generational understandings of what it is to be a woman each ultimately collapse into the refrain “let the boys grow in the trees” — a resigned acknowledgement of the unrestricted experience enjoyed by her male peers.

While the song’s protagonist is placed in a bed she’s outgrown, sentenced to watch through the window from inside the confines of her old bedroom, “the boys” are imagined growing unrestrained in the expanse of the outdoors.

The intractable paradoxes of female existence in Simon’s song, inescapable yet often unarticulated, persist for listeners nearly half a century later. Simon’s voice from 1978 cuts straight to a fate shared by generations of daughters to the present day: “Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze / And watch by the window / Where the boys are in the trees.”

Cristina Henríquez on Humanity, Panama

BY MARIA F. CIFUENTES CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

On

Great Divide.”

The novel is about the construction of the Panama Canal and the intersecting lives of individuals who are often ignored by historical accounts. Henríquez and her readers engaged in an intimate exchange, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere that was reminiscent of two friends conversing over coffee.

Henríquez shared anecdotes from her summers spent sitting by the Panama Canal as a young girl, offered insight into her writing process, and emphasized the importance of uncovering humanity within historical fiction. The seats were filled by locals, friends, and avid readers who were eager to hear from Hen-

ríquez after waiting ten years for her new release. Many even brought with them her last novel, “The Book of Unknown Americans,” in hopes of getting their copies signed. Henríquez opened the night with a confession. Although

Panama Canal but felt that, at the time, she didn’t have the experience to write it. “I think I didn’t have the writerly skills — no, actually, the humanity. I hadn’t had enough time in the world to write that story yet,” Henríquez said.

Henríquez shared anecdotes from her summers spent sitting by the Panama Canal as a young girl, offered insight into her writing process, and emphasized the importance of uncovering humanity within historical fiction. “

many assumed she had been working on the book for 10 years, she actually had the idea for the work 20 years ago, with the actual writing process only spanning five years. All she knew was that she wanted to write about the

Henríquez built the core of the novel around unraveling the stories of those who were involved or whose lives were touched by the construction of the Panama Canal. As a half-Panamanian, Henríquez felt that she was able

to use this book to connect with her heritage and family. She sought to find out what Panamanians were feeling during the transformation of their country and the reason why many weren’t involved in the project. While most books delve into the political intricacies of the project or highlight the mastery of the engineering involved in the canal, Henríquez set out to write about the human element buried underneath these stories.

“As a fiction writer, I think what I’m always looking to do is explore our human impulses, and why we do the things we do, and what it’s like to be alive,” Henríquez said. “What was it like to be alive during the time that the Earth was being transferred in this monumental way?”

As the night progressed,

Henríquez touched upon her research and writing process, which culminated in the novel that she fondly described as “a love letter to Panama.”

Her process had no clear organization to it, from filling

notebooks with random ideas to Zoom calls with scholars whose work specialized in the Panama Canal, and even visiting the Canal Library in Panama itself. By reading a variety of books on the history of the Panama Canal, Henríquez exhibited an inspiring dedication that allowed her to craft narratives of life at that time.

Kaysha Corinealdi, author of “Panama in Black,” attended the event in support of Henríquez, as both of them are writers connected to Panama. She praised Henríquez for her reading and ability to tell such wonderful stories.

When asked what had made her attend an event that centered on a work similar to hers, Corinealdi said, “My goal was to support writers that are trying to certainly write about Panama but also get these histories across that are beyond the typical narrative that people understand about the canal.”

Before ending the night, Henríquez delivered a captivating reading from her novel, focusing

on the character of Francisco, a fisherman who stars in one of the many storylines found in the book. The room was left in awe of her talent; her ability to capture even the smallest details transported the audience directly into Francisco’s life. If anyone in the audience had not picked up her book yet, they certainly would have been compelled to do so afterward. Henríquez immersed the audience into her world as a historical fiction writer who continues to learn about herself and the power of fiction.

“As opposed to many other art forms, I think the great benefit of fiction too is that it allows us interiority and this window into people’s consciousness that you can’t otherwise get,” Henríquez said. Her powerful words and experience encouraged others to simply sit down and write their stories, in hopes of bringing to life the voices of those who are often erased.

‘Medea: The Musical’: A Femme Fatale Takes Center Stage

BY VIKRAM M. KOLLI CRIMSON STAFF

“Medea: The Musical” had everything: a live, onstage band striking chords, Lin-Manuel Miranda-style raps and melodies packed with witticisms, and a diverse cast taking center stage to produce a modern take on an old — specifically, two thousand years old — tale of female rage, revenge, and madness.

Performed at the Agassiz Theatre from March 21 to March 23, the musical was produced by the Harvard Classical Club in collaboration with the Center for Hellenic Studies, a move aimed to fulfill the organizations’ goal to make Classics and Hellenic studies accessible to all, especially those unaware of the timeless themes pervading drama from antiquity.

Originally a tragedy written by Roman playwright Seneca in 50 C.E., director Sara J.

Li’s take on the lasting tale centered on the psychology of Medea (Gunnhildur F. Hallgrímsdóttir ’25), a descendant of the gods with the divine power of prophecy. Throwing audience members into the climax of the story, the show allowed listeners to piece together her tragic narrative with great artistic support from translator Elena K. Lu ’26 and music by Chris B. Ruiz ’26 and Paul Palmer ’26. In classical mythology, Medea, the wife of Jason (Zac Sardi-Santos ’26), employed her magical mastery and wit to aid him in obtaining the Golden Fleece. The musical itself unfolded in the city of Corinth after Jason’s heroic quest, the drama commencing with Medea consumed by fury over Jason’s betrothal to Glauce, the daughter of King Creon (Preston C. Bushnell ’26). The nurse (Gemma I. Dean ’27) caught a glimpse of Medea’s anguish, trembling at the harm she would inflict upon herself

and her offspring. In line with the core of the original play, the cast of “Medea: The Musical” captured the emotions and depth of every character. Hallgrímsdóttir depicted an oscillation of intense passion, manipulating those around her to plot her grand scheme of murdering Glauce as revenge against Jason, while simultaneously projecting her hesitations towards adding infanticides to her murderous schemes. Owning the striking image of a blood-soaked dress, Hallgrímsdóttir did the character justice, conveying her intensity and complex moral compass.

Dean, as the nurse, maintained a similar energy, employing crescendos of dialogue and breaks in the fourth wall to illustrate the fear she harbored for Medea’s madness. While she played the voice of reason, her power was not enough to triumph over Medea’s conviction and ultimate decisiveness. Audience members were caught between a battle of emotional justification and moral reason, constantly captivated by both compelling lines of decision-making. It was this pair’s seriousness and commitment to their characters that balanced out the unseriousness and perfect satire of the others. Sardi-Santos performed as Jason with contoured abs and a boyishness marking him as the playboy of Corinth. His asides were modern, with emotes mimicking a modern-day boyfriend fed up with his girlfriend’s overthinking and mania. During one highlight, his joke about “repopulation” was perfectly delivered with a comedic thrust of his torso toward the audience.

Bushnell’s Creon also demonstrated the satirical aspects of the show, stealing the stage with his sassy remarks toward all of the characters who threatened to install any type of democracy. With a cane too short to touch the floor and expressiveness that filled the

theater, his pushiness towards Medea and assertive disdain for her presence created a comedic interpretation of the Corinthian king. These elements were supplemented by the background characters of the musical’s production. The chorus trio, reminiscent of the omnipresent Fates and their divine orchestration, stole the show in the exposition and concluding musical number with their harmonies and command of the melody. The messenger and citizen, with cameos to break up the intense plot, added a touch of entertaining absurdity. Ruiz and Palmer’s music within the show was fast-paced and packed with historical material, with raps that occasionally carried the storyline to fill in the plot’s gaps. The style then turned on itself, ending with a final number that intuited an almost indifferent notion that infanticide and mania happened on the daily in Corinth. The music became an in-

tegral part of the storytelling, enhancing the audience’s engagement with an exploration of dark themes and additional satirical impact. Combined with the simple set that allowed focus on the characters, the cast commanded attention at the center of the stage. Medea is merciless and vengeful, with a heart full of betrayal towards others and herself. She is the femme fatale of Corinth, her story ending with a bang and a chariot that carries her away into the sun. No matter if viewers were familiar with the tragedy, the acting, music, and design created an ambivalence for Medea, not necessarily depicting her as a villain or a hero, but a woman fighting for her power and recognition in the patriarchal society of antiquity.

“Medea: The Musical” ran at the Agassiz Theatre from March 21 to 23.

WRITER

At The Harvard Bookstore, Cristina Henríquez discussed her new novel, “The Great Divide,” and told Panamanian stories. COURTESY OF MARIA F. CIFUENTES BOOKS

How do you — or do you — think the curriculum prepares Harvard CS graduates to build good software?

ELG: tors in the CS department, care about is basically future-proof ing people’s knowledge. If I teach you a software engineering course in which you nail Java, that will serve you well as long as Java’s around. And hopefully you got those higher-level concepts that are going to be probably preserved in other lan guages that take over.

FM: Could you tell me a bit more about “CS 178: Engineering Us able Interactive Sys tems,” and what you hope undergrads get out of it?

Glassman pulls out “The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design” by Daniel Jackson.

ELG: thing I found so far for thinking about usable interactive systems. It’s not to say that this book is perfect. I think Daniel Jackson has thought really deeply, and he’s created a text that is fantastic to serve as the driver of a conversation that the students and I are having as a learning community. One of the fundamental insights that came out pretty early in the class this year was that usability is not a function of the object. It’s a function of the person and their prior knowledge in relation to the object.

FIFTEEN MINUTES 15

you use any running-specific apps or gadgets?

ELG: I’m on Strava. I have a Garmin watch. The running community at Harvard has been really lovely.

FM: What sport did you play when you were in college?

ELG: Freshman year, I was on the winter track team at MIT, and it was a terrible experience. That started my five-year NCAA clock, and my final fifth year was wrestling, which was a much flourishing of startups hoping to reinvent the way we interact with technology, such as the dropout Avi Schiffman’s wear-opments? Do you think they’re

think if you do that once, you will be inoculated from thinking that what is obvious to you will be obvious to a given user. And then you will hopefully — having that memory seared into your brain — bring in user feedback early and often during your development process.

FM: Some of your recent work has been about AI-resilient interfaces. Can you explain what this is to someone unfamiliar with the topic?

So something that’s really useful for you because you also use Tik Tok and it’s like, ‘oh, it’s just like Tik Tok,’ might be very difficult for someone who’s never used Tik Tok. We can make really novel, exciting new usable systems by coming up with unique combinations of pre-existing basic building blocks.

FM: What aspects of human-computer interaction do you think are most overlooked by people who design software?

ELG: My hope for all graduates of any CS program would be that they had watched over the shoulder of someone using a piece of software that they wrote. And I

ELG: The generalized idea is if you are using an interface, and it has features that are AI powered, we need to, as interface designers, enable you to be more resilient to the AI choices that aren’t right. In order to enable the user to be resilient, we think that the user needs to be able to notice reliably and have the context necessary to judge well these AI choices that are being made.

FM: You were an undergrad and Ph.D. student at MIT. What, if anything, is better about Harvard?

ELG: Harvard students are very ready for the type of rigor that HCI requires, and that type of rigor is not necessarily deriving some optimal interface. We don’t have the math for that. If we did? Cool! But we don’t.

I feel like a humanities and liberal arts education is an excellent preparation for that type of rigor. I think that notion of rigor as being rigorous, was something that was harder to get across for some students at MIT.

out. They are going to basically gut and reconstruct the inside. I’m sure it’ll be more accessible and all these kinds of things. But also, I’m sure that when the students get back into the building, they will not be able to paint, and it will never be the same.

FM: You’ve been tweeting a lot about pedestrians and cyclists. What are your thoughts on the Cambridge City Council bike lane debates?

ELG: Oh, God. Yeah, so, kind of a funny story. During the pandemic, I got radicalized by a really, really wonderful channel called City Beautiful by a professor at UC Irvine. He gave me language to un-

FM: What do you miss about MIT?

ELG: I belonged to an undergraduate living community called East Campus that was kind of for eccentric misfits.

Because we lived in a dilapidated old building that had been around forever, we had decades and decades of student murals that plastered every wall. Every flat surface had been painted by someone, and it was basically a building of art.

Unfortunately the building has been finally slated for renovation, and all the students have been moved

challenges of voice as a medium as opposed to a screen is that it’s very difficult to communicate what the voice assistant can andbuttons you’re gonna look at and press where those buttons have I think those sound like cool they’re doing a lot of user testing. There’s this apocryphal story of when people were developing to the typists — probably unfortunately all female — who were just typing up stuff. They were like, “What would you like?” And they’re like, “Can you make me a better typewriter?” There’s this notion that people can’t imagine what would be possible for them

people are aware of that you can help with, as well as things that you know because you’re so material. It’s possible to lower an obstacle that people currently face that they just didn’t even consider. Like, I don’t wake up and think, “Maybe I’ll try flying today.” It’s just not part of my world of possibilities. But if someone is like, “Gosh, I actually do know how I could get enough lifting something to you. I can lower the obstacle to you flying.” Well,denly, flying becomes an alternative commute option instead of biking!

FM: Tell me about a beautifully designed piece of software you use that people might be interested in.

ELG: I use Superhuman for my email often. Not exclusively, but I think it’s pretty beautiful, and I think it’s pretty functional. It has a lot of hot-keys. You don’t have to move your hands off the keyboard, and I really appreciate that.

sage.lattman@thecrimson.com

FM

Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit THECRIMSON.COM/ MAGAZINE

MIXED RESULTS. The Crimson couldn’t cut its losing momentum in the season’s first home games.

BY OLIVIA G. STRINGHAM ELIZABETH CRAWFORD CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

On Friday afternoon, the Harvard softball team (10-11, 1-4 EIVA) played at Soldiers Field for the first time this season in a double-header against Dartmouth. The Crimson won the first game, but the reigning Ivy League champs couldn’t keep the momentum going and fell to Dartmouth in the second game. The scheduled third game of the series was canceled due to inclement weather, and will now take place on Tuesday, April 9.

The team started strong this spring, going 8-1 in its first nine games of the preseason. Since then, however, the Crimson has posted a mere two wins against 10 losses, including a record of 1-6 on its Spring Break tour in California. Its losing streak culminated in three consecutive losses to league and historic rival, Yale. With 16 more conference games and the Ivy League Tournament left on the schedule, the Crimson still has plenty of time to recapture its early-season mojo and turn its conference record around.

Harvard 9, Dartmouth 6

In the top of the first inning, Dartmouth’s leadoff hitter senior catcher Mary Beth Cahalan smoked a triple to right-center before scoring to give the Big Green a 1-0 lead. Then, in the bot-

tom of the first inning, Harvard’s powerhouse offense took control, scoring five runs on five hits.

“We were attacking offensively in the first game against Dartmouth and had quality at-bats with runners in scoring position,” said junior shortstop Priyanka Kaul.

The barrage was highlighted by sophomore infielder Finley Paynes’ two-RBI single that scored senior outfielder Lauren Bobowski and first-year infielder Sophie Sun – who is also the current Ivy League Rookie of the Week.

Dartmouth scored one run in the top of the second inning, but outstanding defensive plays by the Crimson ended the Big Green threat, keeping the score at 5-2. The Crimson kept the momentum going in the second inning. Thanks to two critical errors by Dartmouth’s defense, Bobowski and Sun scored a pair of runs, increasing Harvard’s lead to 7-2.

The Big Green chipped away at Harvard’s lead in the third and fourth innings, and Harvard came up in the bottom of the fourth leading by just one run, 7-6. But the Crimson responded immediately. Thanks to hits by Sun and junior catcher Savannah Fitzpatrick, Harvard extended its lead to 8-6.

Harvard’s pitching and defense stifled Dartmouth the rest of the way. The Big Green’s final nine batters were retired in order, and the Crimson tacked on another run in the bottom of the sixth inning, bringing the final score to 9-6.

The first game of the doubleheader was the first conference win for Harvard, earned by both a phenomenal defensive and offensive game, with minimal mistakes from the Crimson. Hunter

had a standout game, striking out three batters and boasting three scoreless innings.

Kaul emphasized Hunter’s standout play: “We had players from across the field step up in key situations to keep positive momentum going.”

Harvard 0, Dartmouth 3

Following its first conference win, the Crimson went into the second game of its doubleheader with confidence. However, Dart mouth freshman pitcher Jensin Hall stifled the Crimson, allowing just one hit while striking out 13. Unable to score a single run, Har vard fell to the Big Green 3-0 and lost the momentum it had gained earlier in the day.

Beginning in the top of the first inning, it was evident that the Big Green was seeking revenge, as it had two hits in its first three atbats. Solid pitching by Harvard’s Hunter stranded the runners on second and third base, yet Dart mouth had set the tone with its

early threat.

The Big Green took the lead in the second inning, scoring two unearned runs off of Hunter. In the bottom of the third inning, Hunter recorded the first out, then allowed a single to Dartmouth’s junior infielder Leila Hennessy. Harvard’s Anna Reed was summoned from the bullpen, and after a single and a fielding error loaded the bases, Reed responded by striking out first-

on a wild pitch, the New Hampshire program tacked on an insurance run in the top of the seventh inning, extending its lead to 3-0. Then, Hall closed out the Crimson in the bottom of the seventh, retiring the final three batters in order. “Our pitching and defense kept the game close, but ultimately our offense was not producing,” Kaul said after the game. Harvard continues league play series against Brown. It will play its first

el to Providence, R.I. for the weekend. The ble-header will take place on Saturday at 12:30 pm – and will be streamed on ESPN+ – and the second will start at 3:00 pm. The third game will commence on Sunday at 12:30 pm and will also

SPORTS

A Rough Start to Ivy Season

Coming off of a tough spring break trip, the Harvard baseball team (3-13, 1-2 Ivy) kicked off Ivy League play against Columbia (6-12, 2-1 Ivy). The Crimson, who swept the Lions in 2023, looked to start off on a strong note in conference play. The teams started off the series with a doubleheader on Friday, winning one of two before dropping the matinee on Sunday.

“The games we had this weekend were the most competitive three we’ve had all year,” said staff ace and junior pitcher Sean Matson. Still, the Crimson is waiting for its efforts to show up in the win-loss column.

Harvard 2, Columbia 3

In the first game of the day, Harvard threatened to score in the top of the first inning with two outs, putting runners on first and third with a walk by senior designated hitter Ben Rounds and a single by senior third baseman Jake Berger. Senior first baseman Chris Snopek struck out to end Harvard’s opportunity and keep the game scoreless. Pitching for the Crimson was Matson, who started the game off strong by striking out the leadoff batter and only allowing one on base in the bottom of the first inning. Columbia pitcher Derek Yoo and Matson both settled into their rhythms and delivered one-twothree frames in the second inning. Yoo carried his momentum through the top of the third inning with another one-two-three effort against sophomore outfielder Max Lane, junior outfielder Matt Giberti, and junior infielder George Cooper. In the bottom of the third, the Lions threatened to strike first. After striking out the leadoff batter, Matson allowed two walks with a groundout in between. With runners on first and second with two outs, Matson struck out Columbia center fielder Skye Selinsky to keep the game scoreless.

In the top of the fourth inning, freshman shortstop Tyler Shulman singled to center with two outs, advancing Berger to second base. Junior catcher Sawyer Feller reached on a fielder’s choice, but Shulman was tagged out at second, cutting short another opportunity for the Crimson to score. In the bottom-half of the inning, Columbia first baseman Jack Cooper reached first base on an error by Berger. A subsequent single gave Columbia runners on first and second, putting the Lions in a great position to take the lead. After a groundout advanced the run ners to second and third, Matson allowed a single to left fielder Cole Fel lows, which plated both runners and gave Colum bia a 2-0 lead. The Fellows atbat would end up being Matson’s last of the day.

“I thought it was a productive start,” said Matson, summing up his outing, which consisted of five innings of work and two runs al lowed, one of them earned. “I wish I could have given the team a little bit more, with a hundred pitches. I should be able to give us seven or

eight.” Harvard’s offense continued to struggle in the fifth inning. Despite a single and a stolen base from Giberti, the offense had two strikeouts and a flyout, leaving Giberti stranded on base. Matson rebounded with a strong bottom half of the inning, which included a strikeout and a lineout to center field. The Crimson’s offense found life in the top of the sixth. To lead off the inning, Rounds doubled to left center field. Berger then singled to center, narrowing the Lions’ lead to 2-1. After Yoo was pulled from the game, Shulman and Feller both struck out looking, ending Harvard’s rally. Junior pitcher Cole Cleary relieved Matson to start the bottom half of the sixth. After allowing a groundout and then two walks, he got two flyouts to end the inning. In the seventh inning, both offenses stagnated and failed to put a runner on base, sending the game to the eighth inning, with Columbia still clinging on to a narrow 2-1 lead.

In the top of the eighth inning, Rounds hit another double down the left field line with one out. However, the Crimson couldn’t capitalize with a runner in scoring position, keeping the score 2-1. In the bottom of the eighth, Cleary continued a strong relief outing, striking out two batters and forcing a flyout. With Harvard’s backs against the wall in the top of the ninth and two outs with no runners on, junior utility player William Lybrook, pinch hitting for sophomore infielder Jordan Kang, doubled to right field to keep the Crimson alive. Lane then reached first base after a throwing error by Columbia’s shortstop, which advanced Lybrook to third. Giberti then hit an RBI single to left field, scoring Lybrook, advancing Lane to second, and tying the game at 2-2. Cooper then flew out to center field to end the top half of the inning.

In the bottom half of the ninth, senior pitcher Uday Narottam relieved Cleary, who pitched three innings. After a leadoff single, Narottam allowed a sac bunt followed by an intentional walk, giving the Lions a prime opportunity to win the game with the bases loaded and no outs. Columbia’s first baseman, Jack Cooper, hit a walk-off single to center field and gave the Crimson another painful road loss, along with its first Ivy League loss of the season.

Harvard 8, Columbia 5

Later in the day, Harvard looked to bounce back and even up the series against the Lions, with sophomore pitcher Callan Fang taking the mound for the Crimson. In the first inning, both teams went onetwo-three. In the top of the second inning, Lybrook hit a double with one out. Cooper then plated Lybrook with an RBI single to left field, giving Harvard the first run and an early 1-0 lead. Fang continued his early dominance

base. The Crimson’s bats stayed quiet in the top of the third inning, with two strikeouts and a lineout. In the bottom of the third, Fang allowed a leadoff single and a walk, giving Columbia runners on first and second bases with no outs. After a sac bunt moved runners to second and third, an RBI groundout put Columbia on the board and evened the score at 1-1. Both pitchers remained strong throughout the fourth and fifth innings, with neither team recording a hit.

In the top of the sixth inning, Harvard’s bats continued to stagnate and failed to put a runner on base. In the bottom half of the inning, Fang hit the leadoff batter with a pitch. With two outs, a wild pitch advanced the runner to second base. A throwing error by freshman shortstop Jack Rickheim gave the Lions a 2-1 lead, meaning that the Crimson needed their bats to heat up. In the top of the seventh and in need of a spark, Rounds led the inning off with a home run to center field, tying the game up at 2-2. The homer was his third of the year, putting him on track to exceed the career-high six round-trippers that he collected last season.

With the game tied again, the Crimson worked to seize the advantage. After Berger struck out looking, Lybrook singled to right field, followed by a fly out from senior outfielder Peter Messervy. Then, Cooper hit a bunt single, advancing Lybrook to second base. With two outs in the inning, Shulman walked, giving Harvard bases loaded and two outs. In a crucial moment, Lane hit an important triple down the right field line, plating Lybrook, Cooper, and Shulman and giving the Crimson a 5-2 lead heading into the seventh inning stretch.

the game to replace Abler. Smith allowed a single in his first batter faced, which tied the game at 5-5. Smith limited the damage with a strikeout and a flyout keeping the game at an even score.

In the top of the eighth inning, Harvard’s bats once again came to life in a crucial moment. To lead off the inning, Snopek hit a home run to left field, giving the Crimson a 6-5 lead. Rounds then walked and advanced to second after a single from Berger. Lybrook lined out to right field, but Rounds tagged up and advanced to third base, giving Harvard runners on first and third with only one out. Messervy extended the Crimson’s lead to 7-5 after an RBI single scored Rounds. Cooper then tripled to center field, scoring Berger. However, Messervy was tagged out at home after trying to score on the play. Nonetheless, Cooper’s big hit gave Harvard a commanding 8-5 lead entering the bottom half of the inning. Smith cruised through the bottom of the eighth inning, facing only three batters and striking one of them out. In the top of the ninth inning, the Crimson went one-two-three. With a chance to seal the game’s fate, Smith struck out three batters in the bottom of the ninth, capping off an impressive outing from the junior pitcher, and giving him his second win of the season.

Harvard 4, Columbia 6

In the bottom half of the inning, freshman pitcher Andrew Abler pitched in relief of Fang, whose night ended with six strong innings of work. With one out in the inning, Abler hit a batter with a pitch. Berger made a throwing error on a fielder’s choice hit by the next batter, Miles Blackwell, which put Columbia runners on first and second bases. The Lions’ second baseman, Hunter Snyder, came in clutch with an RBI double, narrowing Harvard’s lead to 5-3. After a walk gave the Lions bases loaded and one out, junior pitcher Tanner Smith came into

Harvard sent freshman Truman Pauley out to the mound on Sunday to make his second start of the season, hoping that he could improve on his inconsistent game two weeks earlier against Eastern Tennessee State, and lead the Crimson to its first series victory on the season. For the Lions, sophomore righty Thomas Santana got the nod, making his first start of the season.

In the top of the first, Rounds reached on a throwing error but was then thrown out trying to steal second, his first caught stealing of the season. In the bottom of the frame, the Lions struck against Pauley early. Snyder, hitting in the lead-off spot for the Lions, turned on a 3-1 fastball down the middle, sending the ball soaring over the wall in right field for a 1-0 Columbia lead. The sequence of that atbat — Pauley falling behind in the count and then struggling to recover — was an omen for the rest of the freshman’s start. In that vein, Pauley walked the next batter, Cole Hage, on four pitches. Hage is usually a threat to run — the senior from Fargo, N.D. stole ten bags last year, pacing the Ivy League — and run he did, swiping second. After another walk, Anton Lazits came up for the Lions with two on and one out. Lazits hit a low line drive toward the middle of the infield, where it glanced off Shulman’s glove at short and rolled into center field for a base hit, scoring Hage. The Lions had a 2-0 lead, and Pauley was laboring. It looked like the freshman might escape the inning at that score, when Columbia’s Cole Fellows hit a ground ball to senior first baseman Chris Snopek, who

fired to second for the force-out. Shulman’s throw back to first wasn’t in time to turn two, though. With the Lions’ Sam Miller at-bat, the Lions executed a perfect double steal: Fellows broke for second, eliciting a throw from catcher William Lybrook. By the time that Cooper caught the ball, the second baseman saw Lazits streaking toward home from third. However, Cooper’s throw home was off the mark, and Lazits slid in to extend the Lions lead to 3-0. A groundout to Shulman ended the inning, finally letting Pauley rest. With Santana on the mound for the top of the second, the Crimson generated some action on the base paths with a hit-by-pitch and a walk. However, the threat was neutralized when Columbia’s first baseman, Jack Cooper, made a fantastic diving snag to bring in a line drive from Shulman with two outs. Santana confused the Crimson’s batters throughout the afternoon, denying the Crimson its first hit until the top of the fifth inning. By contrast, Pauley continued to struggle with his control. With one out, he issued his third walk of the day, losing catcher Owen Estabrook on a 3-2 count. After a forceout to first — on another ground ball that almost became two — Hage came up to bat, hoping to extend the inning. On the first pitch of the at-bat, he hit a line drive double into left-center field, putting runners on second and third with two away. The next batter, Skye Selinsky, followed Hage’s lead, roping Pauley’s first pitch into the left field corner to score Estabrook and Hage. Pauley ended the bleeding by coaxing a groundout from the next batter, but the Lions’ lead had grown to 5-0.

Santana continued to protect the Columbia lead in the third and fourth innings, working around a couple Crimson base runners to keep Harvard both hitless and scoreless. In the fourth, the Crimson dugout held its breath when Lybrook took a pitch to the helmet and knelt down next to the plate for a few minutes. Lybrook eventually walked off the field, but he was pinch-run for by Feller. Santana shook off the momentary interruption and proceeded to strike out the next two Crimson batters to end the inning. The Lions continued to get on base consistently against Pauley, but after allowing five runs in the first two innings, the freshman settled in, making clutch pitches when he needed them. In the third, this took the form of inducing three-straight fly outs after a lead-off double from Lazits. In the fourth, he stranded Snyder and Hage on base by getting a two-out ground out from Cooper. Pauley’s day was finished at the end of that inning, with 90 pitches thrown. In the top of the fifth, the Crimson finally broke through. Shulman led off the inning with a four-pitch walk. Then, Max Lane struck the first Crimson hit of the afternoon, a grounder to the hole that was corralled by the shortstop Miller, who had no play. Just like that, Santana’s no-hitter was kaput and so was his start: Columbia Coach Brett Boretti pulled the sophomore and put in senior reliever Brandon Madrigal.

Unfortunately for Madrigal, Lane’s single meant that the top of the Harvard order had its first chance to do damage with runners in scoring position Giberti singled through the right side to load the bases for Snopek. The senior rolled over on a pitch from Madrial though, producing a weak ground ball that third baseman Eric Jeon fielded and fired home for the force-out. The next man up was Rounds, the Crimson’s hottest hitter who leads the team in almost every offensive category. The senior lived up to his reputation, taking a 2-1 pitch from Madrigal and driving it into the gap in left field, displaying his easy power by going the other way. The bases cleared, Rounds made it to second, and the Crimson was back in the game. Harvard took advantage of a Lions miscue later in the inning, when a low fastball from Madrial got under the glove of Estabrook and rolled to the backstop, allowing Rounds — who had moved over to third on a groundout — to come home and score, narrowing the Columbia lead to 5-4. With Santana out and Madrigal looking vulnerable, the Crimson had hope that it could complete the comeback. But baseball is a fickle game, and after its booming fifth inning, the Harvard bats went silent again. After the bases-clearing double from Rounds, Madrigal bore down, only allowing one more Crimson hit the rest of the game, a two-out single from Giberti in the eighth that was neutralized by a Shulman strike out. Though the Crimson had opportunities in the seventh, on account of sloppy fielding from Columbia, Madrigal retired the heart of the Crimson order to shut down the threat.

Freshman reliever Will Burns, who was roughed up in his last outing at Western Carolina, gave the Crimson three and two-thirds solid innings of relief work, only allowing the Lions to tack on one insurance run in the eighth on a sac fly from Cooper. Ultimately, though, the Crimson’s inability to generate consistent pressure on Santana or Madrigal outside of the fifth inning doomed its chances in the series decider. It also solidified an early deficit in the Ivy League standings from the Crimson, with Penn sweeping its first conference match-up against Brown and leading the Ancient Eight with its 11-10 record overall.

“Everybody on the team has kind of focused on the long term goal of being on top of the Ivy League,” said Matson. “I think we’re just a little bit away from being the best in the Ivy League.”

Now, the Crimson will look to bounce back from the series loss to the Lions and a mid-week game that it dropped against Holy Cross, 17-7. It will welcome the Brown to Cambridge on Saturday for its first homestand, hoping that the familiar environment and the Bears’ struggles will allow it to seize its first series win of the season. The first game of the Saturday doubleheader will kick off at 11:30 a.m. and will be streamed on