THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
VIGIL
| VOLUME CL, NO. 1 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
NEWS
SPORTS
Harvard Remembers David Forst, From Beloved Tai Chi Harvard Baseball to Instructor Yon Lee Moneyball PAGE 7
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PAGE 17
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2023
CLAUDINE GAY
Vigil Held for Victims of California Shootings HONORING VICTIMS. Harvard affiliates gathered on the steps of University Hall Thursday for a candlelight vigil to honor the victims — who were predominantly Asian and Asian American — of three shootings in California.
The Scholar Everyone Sought
SEE PAGE 8
OPINION
Introducing Spring 2023 Opinion Columnists MEET THE STAFF. The Editorial Board is pleased to announce its columnists for the upcoming Spring semester. Opinion columnists will publish on a bi-weekly basis, each focusing on a theme of their choice. SEE PAGE 9
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEAN Claudine Gay will make history on July 1, when she will become the first person of color and only the second woman to lead America’s oldest institution of higher education. But despite Gay’s historic appointment, many of her colleagues and friends say they were unsurprised by her selection to Harvard’s top post. SEE PAGE 6
SAMI E. TURNER—CRIMSON DESIGNER
CITY HALL
Protesters March Into City Hall to Demand Justice for Sayed Faisal BY JINA H. CHOE AND SAMUEL P. GOLDSTON
SPECIAL HEARING
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
P City Council Debates Police Body Cameras FIERCE DEBATE. Cambridge City Councilors sparred over whether the Cambridge Police Department should implement body cameras and how the Council should oversee the department at a special meeting Wednesday. SEE PAGE 11
rotesters stormed Cambridge City Hall and marched into Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui’s office Monday evening to demand answers on the police killing of Sayed Faisal, calling on city officials to release the names of the officers involved in the shooting. The protest interrupted an otherwise ordinary city council meeting, with more than a dozen protesters demanding justice and transparency on the Jan. 4 fatal shooting of Faisal — a 20-year-old University of Massachusetts Boston student and Cambridge resident— by a Cambridge Police Department officer. Led by Somerville resident Suhail P.
COMAROFF WALKOUT
BY DARLEY A.C. BOIT AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL
Family Appeals Dismissal APPEAL FILED. The family of Luke Z. Tang ’18, a Harvard undergraduate who died by suicide in 2015, has appealed the December dismissal of a wrongful death lawsuit against the University. SEE PAGE 5
lease the names,” “No justice, no peace,” and “Send those killer cops to jail,” for several minutes. CPD spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in an emailed statement that no one was arrested in connection to the protest. In a Jan. 6 statement, Warnick wrote that it “would not be appropriate” to comment on specific allegations while the shooting remains under investigation by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office. Siddiqui did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On the afternoon of Jan. 4, police responded to a report of a man harming himself with a weapon. According to a CPD press release, officers asked the man, Faisal, to drop the weapon, and fired non-lethal sponge rounds when he allegedly advanced toward them. An officer shot and killed Faisal when he continued
to approach, the press release said. Purkar, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said in an interview that the protesters sought the release of the full, unredacted police report and the names of the officers involved in the killing, as well as their removal from the department. “They’re on paid vacation right now,” Purkar said. “In what other profession can you murder somebody and then go on paid vacation the very next day?” The chants continued outside the chamber as protesters stormed Siddiqui’s office and pounded on her door, disrupting Siddiqui’s attempt to resume the meeting over Zoom and following through on their chant to shut down “business as usual.”
SEE PAGE 11
HARVARD ADMISSIONS
Over 100 Students Walk Judge Releases Parts of Out of Comaroff Class Sidebar Transcripts RAHEM D. HAMID
TANG LAWSUIT
Purkar, the protest was the latest in a series of demonstrations sparked by resident outrage at the killing, with gatherings at Cambridge City Hall on Jan. 9 and Harvard Square on Jan. 14. “City Manager Huang, Mayor Siddiqui, it has been two weeks since our brother Faisal was murdered!” Purkar shouted from the audience, as the Council voted on a motion to conclude public comment. “We still do not know the names of the officers who murdered Faisal!” The councilors immediately motioned to recess as protesters shouted from the rear of the chamber, with some demonstrators holding a large banner with a portrait of Faisal and the inscription “Justice for Faisal.” As councilors rose from their seats and hurried to the exits, the protesters remained in the chamber and chanted “Re-
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
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ore than 100 students walked out of embattled Harvard professor John L. Comaroff’s class Tuesday afternoon, protesting his continued presence on campus after he was placed on leave last year for violating the University’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies. Students flooded Comaroff’s classroom in Northwest Building classroom B108 — overflowing into the hallway — to protest the first lecture of his class African and African-American Studies 172X: “Colonialism and its Postcolonial/Decolonial Afterlives: Critical Readings.” As Comaroff began to speak, students rose from their seats and filed out of the classroom, chanting, “Justice for survivors,” and “No more Comaroff, no more
complicity.” As the walkout begin, Comaroff, a professor of African and African American Studies and Anthropology, broke into a smile and nodded at the protesters. As the last students left the classroom, one told the professor, “Smile in hell, asshole.” The walkout was organized by members of Our Harvard Can Do Better and the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers’ Feminist Working Group. Students associated with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard and the Student Labor Action Movement also attended the protest. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean and University president-elect Claudine Gay placed Comaroff on unpaid administrative leave for the spring 2022 semester after two internal investigations found that Comaroff violated Harvard’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies.
SEE PAGE 8
BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND EMMA H. HAIDAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A
s Harvard’s admissions lawsuit unfolds at the Supreme Court, Massachusetts District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs unsealed parts of 2018 Harvard admissions courtroom transcripts of private conversations between the judge and the lawyers — known as sidebars — last month. Harvard law professor Jeannie C. Suk Gersen filed a request to unseal on Nov. 11, arguing that the high-profile case required greater transparency. Several days after Gersen, The New York Times and the New Yorker — for which Gersen is a contributing writer — also filed in support of unsealing the sidebars. “When I went to go look at the transcripts back from 2018 to try to make sure I had a complete record of what happened at trial, I discovered that all of the side-
bars were sealed, and that certainly is not normal,” Gersen said in an interview with The Crimson. “In fact, I can hardly think of other civil cases where a blanket sealing of every single sidebar of a trial would have occurred.” Some transcript excerpts from the sixth, seventh, and tenth days of the threeweek trial between Harvard and anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions, which alleges that the College discriminates against Asian American applicants, remain sealed. Ten days after the Dec. 19 order to unseal, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an appeal, stating that the “undefined category” of applicant information is not “sensitive enough to overcome the presumption of access.” On Jan. 11, the New Yorker filed another letter of appeal. Burroughs said in her decision that the Court weighed the “sensitivity of the
SEE PAGE 5
