Editorials
We Can Have Our Code and Eat Camus, Too
Are we the last generation of English majors? No. We’re also not the last generation of computer scientists, biologists, or mathematicians. The future is interdisciplinary. The energy currently invested in unproductive squabbles between STEM and the humanities should be harnessed into collective dialogue and inquiry seeking to drive our current world forward.
Spring Break Postcards
Follow The Crimson Editorial Board’s spring breakers as they experienced the filmic camaraderie of college sports, the reverence of suburbia before the crack of dawn, and even a lizard. With Punxsutawney Phil’s predicted six weeks of winter coming to an end, we’re all refreshed and ready to finish out the spring semester in actual spring weather.
Corgis and Cash: Harvard’s Club Conundrum
Reforming the mechanisms of financial oversight should be a top priority for the Dean of Students Office. We love our clubs and we love corgis — we just don’t think one should be spending money on the other, a point College administrators raised with HUFPI. It would be nice if they also raised more safeguards around club funding at large.
Opening Our Front Door to Simmons and HBCUs
When Ruth J. Simmons delivered our Commencement address in 2021, we wrote that Harvard “invites a brilliant, forward-thinking speaker, yet does not follow her example in its own backyard.” Now, Harvard has welcomed that same brilliant, forward-thinking speaker to its front door. We can’t wait to open the door and follow in her example.
The Fuzzy Boundaries of Animal Experimentation
Despite our suspicions about the claims levied against Dr. Livingstone’s work, it is prudent to acknowledge that many prominent scientists and primatologists have raised concerns with her research. Emotional reactions, too, belie ethical concerns that cannot be easily rationalized out of existence.
Down With Winthrop
The petition to dename Winthrop has the potential to be the first success of the formal Faculty of Arts and Sciences process of submitting denaming requests. We call upon Harvard’s administration to take this opportunity to prove their commitment to the denaming initiative, by seeing a well-founded, highly-supported request to fruition.
The Student Government Behind the Curtain
We hope that a reprioritization of funding as the HUA’s singular responsibility can redeem the student body’s perception of student government. The current hatred of the HUA actively hurts the credibility of the opt-in Student Activities Fee, potentially disincentivizing students from investing in the one operation that student government should perform and that all students benefit from.
Build, Cambridge, Build
To be clear, we have nothing against bubble tea. We believe food can serve as a practical, delectable entrance point to a variety of cultures. But even as we maintain the value of cultural food options in the Square, the new bubble tea shop’s opening reminds us of a problem that has long plagued Harvard Square: the affordability crisis.
Dissent: Harvard Square is Not the Center of the Universe
It’s time we asked ourselves, who’s really to blame for Harvard Square being so inaccessible: individual tourists or the multibillion-dollar university that created a local economy with 16 dessert shops, more than 10 banks, and an overpriced CVS in an effort to appeal to them?
The Future Looks Bright for Cambridge’s Children
Investment in universal pre-K and college is a high-yield investment into future generations of children and young adults. We’re delighted to see Cambridge take steps to bring this future to light, and hope for the nation to follow.
Recording Anti-Trans Bias in the Paper of Record
Journalistic objectivity does not amount to a get-out-of-jail free card. When newspapers receive criticism on their coverage of issues surrounding certain communities — and particularly when that criticism comes from within — they cannot hide, and definitely not behind structures they themselves devised.
Pleasant Days Shroud Unpleasant Truths
Today, an unseasonably warm day should sound a screeching cry to do everything in our power to change. By the time 60 degree weather is seasonable for February, it will be far too late.
We are the Generation of Mass Shootings
Time and time again, we have heard our government’s message loud and clear: guns over lives. We do not gain any new insights the more we wait — we are tired of begging for scraps of a solution. We wonder how many more breaths we will waste on unheard pleas while our peers must ration them in too-silent classrooms, suffocating themselves to survive. We are the generation asking for change.
What’s in a Name? Harvard, Undergraduate, College, and Student
In an era of political polarization, state interference in University syllabi, and catastrophic climate change, we are comforted by the administration's close focus on branding accuracy. In the spirit of the changing times, we, The Crimson Editorial Board, humbly offer some new naming policy ideas to implement alongside this new one.
Editorial Snippets: Valentine Vignettes
Whether organically or through the multi-billion dollar commercial complex that feasts on a paper-heart production of love, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to reflect on why we love, who we love, and what keeps us loving. In honor of the occasion, we asked the Editorial Board — hopeless romantics and cynical curmudgeons alike — to reflect on the loves in their lives this semester.
This Valentine’s Day, Show Labor Some Love
We call on Harvard to voluntarily recognize the union. We urge students and members of the Harvard community not directly engaged in the unionization drive to get involved. And to our non-tenured faculty: We stand behind you. Labor deserves love too.
Harvard Must Fight the Suffocation of AP African American Studies
As legal restrictions on what constitutes ‘valid’ historical knowledge multiply, and books continue to disappear from Florida educators’ shelves, the stakes are abundantly clear: Harvard has no time to lose.
Sayed Faisal Should Have Received Help, Not a Bullet
That a mental crisis escalated to a chase by at least four police officers and ended up in the death of an individual is heartbreaking, to say the least. Even as the details surrounding Sayed Faisal’s fatal encounter with Cambridge Police Department officers on Jan. 4 are yet to be uncovered, one thing remains clear: The system failed Faisal.
A Crack in the Stone of College Sports
Schools must provide better safeguards within their sports teams to monitor team culture, coaching pedagogy, and athlete mental health. We want student athletes to find fulfillment and pride in their teams, instead of the current overwhelming pressure they weather with hearts of stone.
Harvard’s (Second) Most Elite Club
Inevitably, many of us will one day become alumni ourselves, whose votes will elect future Board members. Prior to graduation, we should seek a better understanding of the Board of Overseers both to improve its current function and to protect our future voices and votes.
The (Mis)Education of ChatGPT
Schools that are too trigger-happy with bans on AI will run the risk of placing their students at a serious educational and competitive disadvantage, particularly relative to other countries that may be more receptive to AI than our own. Education must prepare young people for the future — and the future seems to involve a great deal of ChatGPT.
To All Those Involved in the Comaroff Walkouts
For the second semester in a row, alleged abuser Professor John L. Comaroff is back in the classroom, while students chant in unison, fervently hoping that their voices — loud as ever — might just induce the administration to act. In the long fight against this alleged abuser, we must all continue to beat the drum until justice is won.
Kenneth Roth: The One that (Almost) Got Away
The best apology Harvard can give Kenneth Roth is its improvement. We hope it will. We hope this incident will serve as an opportunity for Harvard to boldly and ambitiously double down on its commitment to academic freedom in hiring University-wide.
Good Day, President Gay
Starting July 2023, a Black woman will proudly claim Harvard’s highest office — becoming the first Black president and president of color in the history of the University. Her impending tenure provides an unprecedented, deeply resonant model of leadership for millions across the country and the globe; we hope its effect will be equally transformative in sparking change.
Standing With Democracy and Chinese Protesters, At Home and Abroad
A future that begins not with a boot forever stamping on a human face — but with a protest, a vote, or a whisper that asks, in brave, unflinching terms, whether you hear the people sing.