Editorials
Eight No-Nonsense Tips for a Healthy Campus
After three years of shifting variables and complex policies regarding Covid-19, we’ve tried to keep our advice simple with eight brief, no-nonsense tips.
An Overdue Due Process for Research Misconduct
Harvard has a responsibility to step up and lead by establishing detailed procedures for a transparent, fair system of adjudication in response to claims of research misconduct.
Dissent: Equitable Admissions Are Proportionate
Instead of absolving selective colleges of their obligation to admit comparable numbers of men and women, we wish that the Editorial Board had consistently applied its reparative admissions rationale to men.
Men Don’t Need Their Own ‘Affirmative Action’
We believe in fixing the problems that plague men today. But that requires acknowledging the pervasive harms of the patriarchy and the nuanced intersectional nature of these problems — which casts gender-based ‘affirmative action’ as incomparable to the race-based affirmative action we so recently lost.
The Picture of Douglas Elmendorf
As the dean steps down, now is the perfect moment to consider a fuller picture of his time running Harvard’s public policy-focused school — a picture with both luminous hues and murky patches.
Quelling the Flames in the Dining Halls
It’s obvious that this is a problem. The immediate solution is obvious: Install air conditioning in the dining halls, at once.
To ChatGPT or Not to ChatGPT?
Ultimately, generative AI is here to stay, and we commend Harvard’s approach to managing this reality. Harvard’s current efforts maximize the power and potential of one thing generative AI cannot impede upon: user choice.
Dissent: Does Length (of Writing) Really Matter?
The new five prompts ask applicants to talk about different aspects of themselves, from their intellectual interests, extracurriculars, and family responsibilities to their life experiences. These prompts give clear guidance on what Harvard wants to know about its applicants. For a student with limited experience in writing an application, the prompts assuage the burden of trying to determine the aspects of their life that are of interest to Harvard.
Let’s Talk About Harvard’s Brand New College Application
While Harvard’s new prompts signify a notable effort to meet the moment, we have misgivings about the ability of these new questions to thoroughly capture the diverse array of student experiences. How can students reasonably condense discussions about formative life experiences and their identities into 200 words or less?
The Pragmatic Case for Ending Legacy Admissions, Now
Rather than reiterate the keen inequity at the core of legacy admissions (a well-hashed argument in our editorial pages), we hope to provide a practical explanation for why University President Claudine Gay should direct her administration to abolish legacy admissions, right now.
Editorial Snippets: Advice from the Ancient
New school year, new additions to the Harvard College family. As a way to welcome the Class of 2027, we asked our upperclassman editors to reflect on what they wish they’d known — and what they’re glad they learned — via brief messages to the incoming class.
Summer Postcards
Click the markers on the map below to witness the Editorial Board refresh and reinvent themselves in time for this new academic year.
Harvard’s Fight to Keep Diversity Alive is Just Beginning
The Supreme Court once considered Harvard’s admissions policies exemplary, even though they were far from perfect. While we despair at the Court’s striking of race-conscious admissions, Harvard must now rise to the occasion and establish a truly praiseworthy model for higher education admissions.
Editorial Snippets: The Post-Affirmative Action Edition
Now that the Supreme Court has declared Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies unconstitutional, we have once again asked our editors to share their perspectives, offering a snapshot of the mosaic of student responses to the ruling at their most immediate and raw.
The Changing Faces of a Harvard Education
To meet this uncertain moment, each figure within Harvard’s multifaceted model of education will need to face one another and work in tandem, producing a kaleidoscopic vision of our University’s future in which all students, affiliates, and graduates may see themselves accurately reflected amidst ongoing change.
A Post-Covid Campus by Students, for Students
Harvard is a university drenched in history, influenced by a chain of traditions, norms, and practices stretching back centuries. The pandemic’s blip on this record has torn us away from institutional inertia, offering us near-limitless potential for what our campus could look like.
The Dysfunctional DSO Strikes Again
As we’ve opined in the past, clubs powered by hardworking students are foundational to a Harvard education. Through our organizations, many of us find tight communities and develop lifelong skills that benefit us long after we graduate. So in response to the DSO’s proposal to halt club creation, we have a counteroffer: How about no?
Dissent: A Welcome Addition to Campus Discourse
We were disappointed by the Board’s assumption today that the Council of Academic Freedom at Harvard’s mission is not a genuine effort to support academic freedom. By calling the council’s explanation for its formation “dishonest” and thereby assuming malicious intent from the signatories, the Board has failed to practice the very credit and kindness it has called upon others to extend in civil discourse.
Some Cautious Counsel to the Academic Freedom Council
We don’t entirely trust the council’s intentions in constructing this freedom right now, but we remain cautiously optimistic for its future. You might see us in the audience of upcoming workshops, hoping for our skepticism in the council to be proven wrong. Until then, in the spirit of free inquiry, we’ve provided our criticisms to build a more productive campus discourse.
Editorial Snippets: Happy 150th to The Crimson
In 1873, The Crimson published its first newspaper. One hundred and fifty years later, as alumni flock back in town for this weekend’s 150th Anniversary Celebration, we’ve asked members of the Editorial Board to reflect on the bits of magic that have brought — and continue to bring — 14 Plympton St. to life.
Racialized Reviews and Harmful Headlines
Music considered to have widespread appeal often caters to a culture that spotlights whiteness — a culture that ends up shafting Black communities and artistic expression. Selectively embracing Black culture is a pervasive campus-wide trend that has bled into this very newspaper’s own coverage. Making Yardfest a festivity worth celebrating starts with us, as students, cultivating an appreciation for a broad palette of cultures.
Dissent: It’s Ok To Go Into Big Tech
Morality extends far beyond people’s career choices: Individuals can still be good people if they work in profit-driven sectors like big tech. As long as our peers are not doing evil things, we see no reason to censure their post-graduation choices.
Usually, Bigger Is Better — But Not in Tech
Harvard’s techies often fall blindly into big tech without deeper inquiry. Opening our eyes to alternate paths requires a cultural shift towards social good. Harvard, as an institution, should exist to engender good. Even though one’s career is not the only way to do good, we hope that the value of public service touches, in at least some small part, all aspects of one’s life — including work.
Dissent: Don’t Donate to Harvard
Given the host of things the uber-rich spend their money on, donating to an educational institution like Harvard is somewhat praiseworthy. It is, however, not the most effective use of $300 million — not even close.
Take the Money Without the Values
We might never know if this donation came with strings, but now that the money has transferred hands, the unrestricted nature of Griffin’s donation means that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences can spend these funds where it pleases. We have only one request: Use this money well, to promote the social good. We hope that Harvard will put these new $300 million into the pure pursuit of universal betterment.