The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
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VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 27
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CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2022
EDITORIAL PAGE 4
NEWS PAGE 5
SPORTS PAGE 6
Waiting for Harvard’s Counseling and Mental Health Services to care
Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill to receive Radcliffe Medal
Men’s swimming and diving wins fifth straight Ivy League title
Students Rally for Ethnic Studies YouTube Prank Disrupts Classes By ELLA L. JONES, LEAH J. TEICHHOLTZ, and MONIQUE I. VOBECKY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
By VIVI E. LU and LEAH J. TEICHHOLTZ
Students called on Harvard to establish an ethnic studies department and condemn racism against Asian Americans during a Tuesday morning rally in Harvard Yard. More than thirty affiliates joined the rally, which was co-hosted by the Asian American Association, the Asian American Women’s Association, and the Task Force for Asian American Progressive Advocacy and Studies. The protesters opted to congregate outside University Hall, where the Faculty of Arts and Sciences would previously gather for its monthly meetings. The FAS faculty held its March meeting virtually Tuesday afternoon. The rally was catalyzed by the racist attack against Undergraduate Council President Michael Y. Cheng ’22, in which signs containing an anti-Asian racist slur were posted on his door last month. Organizers said though the protest was
SEE RALLY PAGE 3
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The Asian American Association co-hosted a rally outside University Hall Tuesday morning, calling for the establishment of an ethnic studies department. TRUONG L. NGUYEN—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
A team of YouTubers disguised as Harvard students crashed some undergraduate classes Tuesday to the dismay of several professors and students. Jidion Adams, known on YouTube as “JiDion,” trespassed into at least two classes — a General Education course in Harvard Hall and an introductory biology course in Sanders Theatre. Adams, who has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, is known for making prank videos. According to students in Life Sciences 1B: “An Integrated Introduction to the Life Sciences,” a group clad in Harvard apparel and talking loudly entered Sanders Theatre well after class had begun. Students said Andrew J. Berry, an LS1b professor, asked the impostors to leave after Adams began typing noisily on a vintage typewriter. The YouTubers initially left but returned shortly and be-
gan shouting on the balcony of the theater. After Berry confronted them again, they left a second time. Hopi E. Hoekstra, the LS1b professor lecturing when the group entered Sanders Theatre, continued teaching through the interruption. Berry said he asked Sanders’ audiovisual staff to call the Harvard University Police Department, who arrived after the group had left. HUPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Adams declined to comment on the interruptions, though he posted on Twitter and Instagram stating that he had been “kicked out of Harvard.” LS1B student Raymond Zheng ’25 said he “didn’t appreciate” the interruption and called it “disrespectful,” though he noticed some students in the class found humor in the situation, Hoekstra wrote in a statement that she felt “lucky” to teach Harvard students
SEE PRANK PAGE 5
Comaroff Lawsuit Paul Farmer Remembered for Humility Reignites Activism By ARIEL H. KIM and MEIMEI XU
By SOPHIA C. SCOTT and CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Several Harvard faculty members gathered in a lecture hall last Friday — but not to teach a class. Rather, they were there to learn about graduate students’ calls for changes to Harvard’s sexual harassment reporting process. The Feminist Working Group of Harvard’s graduate student union hosted the teachin, which aimed to engage faculty in the union’s calls for reforms to sexual misconduct complaint procedures. The union has long petitioned for the University to allow third-party arbitration for discrimination and sexual harassment complaints. Koby D. Ljunggren, president of the HGSU-United Automobile Workers, co-led the event with legal experts and Jade d’Alpoim Guedes — an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, who alleged former Harvard Anthropology professor Gary Ur-
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
ton sexually harassed her while she was a graduate student. “Faculty have expressed a lot of confusion surrounding our demands around improvements on University processes that deal with cases of identity- and power-based harassment and discrimination,” Mary Pattara, a spokesperson for the event, wrote in an emailed statement. “The protections and procedures the University currently offers are inadequate and do not provide justice for survivors,” she wrote. University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment.Following a lawsuit challenging the University’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints against Harvard professor John L. Comaroff, the teach-in aimed to offer Harvard faculty a chance to learn about the union’s push for revised Title IX procedures. “One of the big deficiencies in our campaign is that it’s always been very difficult to
In the midst of a hectic schedule — flying between Boston, Rwanda, and Haiti, teaching at the University, and meeting dignitaries — renowned Harvard physician Paul Farmer always made time for the people in his life, his colleagues and students say. When Darja Djordjevic ’08 reached out to Farmer to discuss working in Rwanda, his team told her head to MIT where he was giving a talk. “I got to sit with Paul nearby and listen while he did one of his canonical, traditional Paul Q and A’s, which he was famous for, which would last a few hours,” Djordjevic said. “Paul had this indefatigable passion for teaching and engaging with students.” After the lecture wrapped up, Farmer invited Djordjevic, a freshman student at the Harvard Medical School, to his 50th birthday party. There, he introduced her to major supporters
SEE ACTIVISM PAGE 3
SEE FARMER PAGE 3
Paul Farmer (right) stands with his former student and dissertation advisee, Scott S. Lee ’03 (left). Lee said he was inspired by Farmer and his dedication to helping others. PHOTO COURTSEY SCOTT S. LEE
Freshman Dormitories Experience Three Burglaries in Nine Days By SARAH GIRMA and BRANDON L. KINGDOLLAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Wigglesworth Hall was one of three freshman dormatories in Harvard Yard burglarized in the span of nine days. CHRISTOPHER HIDALGO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Harvard Today 2
News 3
Editorial 4
Sports 6
Harvard Yard was struck by three burglaries in nine days, with students in Canaday Hall, Mower Hall, and Wigglesworth Hall reporting trespassers and stolen laptops. During all three thefts, a suspect trespassed into a student’s residence, stole a laptop, and escaped undetected. Several other items were also stolen in the Wigglesworth burglary, including two additional laptops, an iPhone, and an iPad. Harvard University Police Department spokesperson Steven G. Catalano wrote an advisory email to Harvard affiliates Friday afternoon after the first two burglaries at Mower and Wigglesworth. “In both instances, occupants reported that while they were sleeping, someone climbed through their first floor window and stole laptops, Air
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Pods, a backpack, and a wallet from their rooms,” Catalano wrote. In the advisory, Catalano reminded students to secure their dorms’ windows and doors and urged them to report any suspicious activity in or around the undergraduate residences. He added that it was unclear whether the Mower and Wigglesworth incidents were related. Nicholas D. G. Apostolicas ’25, who lives in Mower Hall, said he had left the window in his first-floor suite’s common room open about six inches while working on a project in his bedroom next door. Around 2 a.m., an intruder slid open the window screen and climbed in. “I was completely oblivious to what was happening,” Apostolicas said. “If I instead just went out to say hi to my roommate or something, I wonder about how that would have gone down.”
According to Apostolicas, the members of his suite did not notice anything amiss until the following morning when his roommate texted their group chat to ask if anyone had seen his laptop. Soon after, Apostolicas noticed that some of their belongings, such as masks and water bottles, had been thrown out of their common room window. “Things started to click then, and I was like, ‘Oh, shoot,’” Apostolicas said. “We called HUPD but, honestly, they say ‘Oh, we’ll look into it,’ but we just know nothing’s going to be done.” “If they had cameras or stuff that would have been a lot different, but there’s really just not much they’re able to do in order to help,” he added. Four days later, HUPD closed the case with no resolution.
SEE BURGLARIES PAGE 5
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