Op Eds
If Harvard Wants to Lead on Climate, It Must Drop David Rubenstein
Here at Harvard, the call for Rubenstein is this: recuse or resign. Legal ethics 101 says he should have removed himself from votes within the Harvard Corporation that relate to the University’s response to the climate crisis years ago. If he can’t take this basic step now, he should immediately resign from the Harvard Corporation. It’s time for Harvard to do what it has promised: put people and the planet over profit.
I Am Palestinian and I Stand With The Crimson
For the first time at Harvard, I feel heard as a Palestinian. When The Crimson Editorial Board published their unequivocal backing of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel, I felt that a milestone had been reached.
Balancing the Story of Harvard and Slavery
Both white and Black Americans have been fighting for racial equality at least since the time of the American Revolution — which is why we no longer have slavery and legal segregation in the United States. Today’s popular one-sided view is effective propaganda, but terrible history.
I Won’t Get In a Public Elevator
When I see someone getting into the elevator with my disabled peers, I will not assume their able-bodiedness or ponder whether they are up-to-date on their testing cadences. I will simply hope they have no other choice but to ride the elevator.
Reckoning With Harvard’s Ties to Slavery Requires Prison Divestment and Prison Education
If the institution would support a college-in-prison program, I would, along with other faculty and students, help to make it a reality. Could some of those $100 million dollars allocated towards reckoning with Harvard’s legacy of slavery be directed towards the liberation of people who are still not free?
Want to Change the World After Graduation? Unionize Your New Job
In all likelihood, you will be entering a non-union workplace upon graduation — but you can fix that!
I Am a Crimson Editor and I Stand with Israel
When my people and our homeland come under attack, I will not stay silent. I am still a Crimson editor, but this editorial does not represent me; I do and always will stand with Israel.
A Passover Plague: Harvard’s Israel Apartheid Week
Witnessing how people rise against Jewish communities in this generation has been a burden for many Jewish students, but they will remember the first verse of the Vehi Sheamda prayer: “It is this that has stood for our ancestors and for us,” this meaning the promise that God made to Abraham, that our ancestors would be redeemed from Egypt and make it safely to the biblical Land of Israel. It is this promise of a national homeland that we proudly sing at the end of the seder, “Next Year in Jerusalem.”
A White Man’s Voice: The Role of the Privileged Actor
There are many things I can and should do with the platform my privilege affords me. Telling someone else’s story for them is not one of those things.
It Doesn’t Have to Be ‘Apartheid’
Aside from sacrificing honesty for the sake of provocation, these words alienate students who, like me, are genuinely upset about and disillusioned by Israel’s decades-long disenfranchisement, displacement, and oppression of the Palestinian people. I hate to get caught up in semantics, but with conversations that hit close to home, the words we use really do matter.
A More Democratic Student Government Wouldn’t Have Elections
The original sin of this school comes with awkwardly fitting a fractured template for representative government from the outside world onto a community small enough to lead itself cooperatively. To absolve it, we must choose something different, better — a politics of direct democracy, of personality, and of action.
Usually, Racism is Mundane
To many Asian Americans, racism has become a normalized fact of being. It’s not always — in fact, it’s usually not — as explicit as it was that night in Allston. It’s a less visible kind of racism than the hate crimes that make the news. It’s also a less terrifying kind of racism, but an exponentially more tiresome one. It adds a tiny weight to every aspect of your life; even though the added weight is usually unnoticeably small, when it’s aggregated over every day and every week, it becomes exhausting.
Reflections of a Multiracial Asian-American Woman
Being multiracial has only begun to show me my role in the movement toward equality, and I want to make sure that my self-reflection continues well after #StopAsianHate stops trending on social media. I may never feel comfortable in an entirely Asian space or a completely white one, but for now, I am proud to say that I am fully mixed.
We’re All Going to Die
This isn’t an optimistic op-ed about how if we all sober up, we can band together to solve the climate crisis. This isn’t even a deceivingly cynical op-ed meant to be proven wrong by do-gooders. This is, instead, a simple exposition of my personal opinion: that Harvard’s inability to recognize the gravity of the situation at hand only confirms Camus’ view of humanity’s disbelief in death.
Literally Allergic To The Cold
The next time you look out your window to a frosty Cambridge day, you may mull over grabbing a sweater or jacket, or dread the frigid walk to class. On these days, I wake up and wonder if today’s the day I freeze to death — literally.
