Ten Stories That Shaped 2019

Harvard Law School professor and former Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. announced in January that he would represent Hollywood producer and accused sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein, sparking a wave of student activism and heated debates over the role of the College’s faculty deans. By mid-May, the College announced it would not renew Sullivan and co-faculty dean Stephanie R. Robinson's appointments.

Sullivan has firmly defended his decision to represent Weinstein, who faces charges for rape and sexual abuse. After initial backlash surrounding the case, Sullivan sent an email to Winthrop residents in late January stressing the importance of representing the “unpopular defendant.”

In the months following his comments, scores of students mobilized in protest, organizing rallies, letter campaigns, and a sit-in in Winthrop dining hall to “reclaim” the house.

Students demanded that the College remove Sullivan from his post, citing conflicts between his faculty dean responsibilities — which included handling sexual assault-related matters in Winthrop — and his defense of Weinstein.

In early February, Sullivan announced he and Robinson would appoint Winthrop Resident Dean Linda D.M. Chavers as the “point person” for issues surrounding sexual assault in the house.

The pair of emails did not ultimately assuage student concerns. Later that month, the College tapped former Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 to lead a “climate review” addressing concerns from Winthrop House residents over Sullivan’s decision.

After months of student activism, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana announced in early May that he would not renew co-faculty deans Sullivan and Robinson after their term ended on June 30. He attributed his decision to dismiss the pair to the “untenable” environment they created in Winthrop.

A day before Khurana’s announcement, an investigation by The Crimson revealed that issues in Winthrop under Sullivan and Robinson’s leadership simmered for years before the Weinstein controversy. More than a dozen Winthrop staff members who worked under Sullivan and Robinson said the pair created a toxic and at times retaliatory work environment. At one point in 2016, more than half of Winthrop tutors made a pact to quit over concerns surrounding Sullivan and Robinson’s leadership, though they ultimately chose to stay.

Robinson — a law lecturer — and Sullivan still maintain their teaching appointments at Harvard Law School. In early May, before Khurana’s announcement, Sullivan left Weinstein’s legal team.

Sullivan and Robinson have since announced plans to challenge Harvard’s decision and launch a campaign centered around free speech and open discourse on campus, releasing a five-minute video statement.

Over the summer, the College appointed Institute of Politics Director Mark D. Gearan ’78 and Mary Herlihy-Gearan as interim faculty deans of Winthrop House through the 2019-2020 academic year. Students said the fall semester in Winthrop — and the Gearans’ stewardship — has been as quiet as the spring was tumultuous.

—Staff writer Amanda Y. Su can be reached at amanda.su@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandaysu.

A federal judge ruled in October that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies do not illegally discriminate against Asian American applicants — a decision that came nearly one year after a three-week trial brought national scrutiny to affirmative action policies at Harvard and its peer universities across the country.

Allison D. Burroughs, the judge who presided over the case, wrote in her decision this fall that Harvard’s goal of “ensuring diversity” relies on considering race in its admissions processes and that those policies pass “constitutional muster.”

Though she upheld Harvard’s admissions policies, Burroughs suggested improvements, such as providing admissions officers with implicit bias training and clearer guidelines on how to consider race when reading applications. In a December interview, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said the College is “moving ahead” to implement these suggestions.

Despite Burroughs’ ruling, there will likely be years of litigation ahead for the high-profile suit. Just three days after the ruling, the plaintiff — anti-affirmative action advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions — filed a notice of appeal to the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals. SFFA has contended since 2014 that the College limits the number of Asian American students it accepts through informal quotas and discriminatory application rating systems. SFFA President Edward J. Blum said in a press release that SFFA is prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

On Harvard’s campus, however, many students and administrators praised Burroughs’ decision. After the ruling was released, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana wrote in an email to The Crimson that he was “profoundly grateful” for the decision. Madison A. Trice ’21, who testified in Harvard’s defense at the trial, called the release a “day of celebrating.”

In the lead-up to the fall 2018 trial, Burroughs ordered the public release of thousands of pages of previously confidential admissions-related documents. These filings, which included internal correspondence among University administrators, helped drive international buzz around the lawsuit. They revealed how a review by the University’s own research office concluded that the College’s admissions process yields “negative effects” for Asian American applicants. Documents associated with the case also provided insight into how the Admissions Office rates and judges applications — and how it might favor recruited athletes and children of wealthy donors.

Legal scholars have speculated the Harvard case may serve as a “roadmap” for other affirmative action cases, such as the pending lawsuit SFFA has filed against the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Experts argue the case will drag on for several more years and could have a wide-reaching impact on affirmative action in higher education nationwide. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is actively investigating the use of race in Harvard’s process; it has also opened a concurrent probe directed toward Yale University admissions.

—Staff writer Simon J. Levien can be reached at simon.levien@thecrimson.com.

Harvard’s Athletics Department was thrust into the national spotlight in early April after Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay announced an “independent review” of head fencing coach Peter Brand after he engaged in a real estate transaction involving the family of current and former members of the team.

Brand sold his Needham, Mass. home to iTalk Global Communications, Inc. co-founder Jie Zhao for approximately $300,000 above its market valuation. Zhao’s younger son was admitted to the College shortly after the sale occurred and currently fences on the varsity team.

Zhao’s older son, who also fenced for Harvard’s team, graduated from the College in 2018. Zhao and Brand are also connected through a series of non-profit financial transactions that occurred at the time Zhao’s older son was admitted to the College.

Gay’s announcement came in the wake of a closely-watched FBI investigation dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.” The investigation charged celebrities and business moguls with bribing universities, fabricating standardized test results, and manipulating schools’ athletic recruitment systems to gain their children admission.

In response to the Athletics Department inquiry, Harvard announced that it planned to conduct trainings for coaches on its conflict of interest policy.

In July, Harvard dismissed Brand after the inquiry found he violated Harvard’s conflict of interest policy, Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise wrote in an email to athletics staff.

In September, the Athletics Department named Daria Schneider — former head coach of the Cornell fencing team — the new head coach of the Harvard men’s and women’s fencing programs.

The following month, Gay announced an internal review of the athletics department, seeking to examine the “student-athlete experience,” the culture of athletic programs, and the structure and operations of the department. The committee consists of top administrators including Scalise and Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana.

Gay said that the review was unrelated to the scandals and will not concern the College’s admissions and recruitment practices, and instead was prompted by the upcoming centennial of the founding of the Athletics Department.

In the wake of Harvard’s review, other universities including Yale and Stanford also took measures to audit and investigate their own athletic recruitment processes.

—Staff writer Austin W. Li can be reached at austin.li@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @austinwli.

Amid the departure of multiple tenure-track professors this year, student and alumni activists intensified calls for the University to create a formal ethnic studies program at Harvard, marking the latest campaign in a nearly five-decade push.

In early 2019, Harvard Graduate School of Education associate professor Natasha K. Warikoo and assistant professor of History Genevieve A. Clutario announced their departures, prompting activists to protest and write to University President Lawrence S. Bacow.

Soon after, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay announced she was recruiting three professors who study ethnicity. At least two of the three recruits accepted offers to join the faculty in Fall 2019. By June, Gay announced she would hire three to four more senior faculty who specialize in Asian American, Latinx, and Muslim American studies.

Gay has said repeatedly that FAS must hire more faculty before establishing a new ethnic studies concentration. The College offers an Ethnic Studies track within the History and Literature concentration and an Ethnicity, Migration, Rights secondary field, but activists have called such offerings insufficient, citing other institutions’ more robust programs.

On Nov. 27, the University denied tenure to associate professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Lorgia García Peña. Activists — some of whom had launched a letter-writing campaign in support of the tenure case in April — immediately decried the decision, citing García Peña’s Latinx studies scholarship, mentorship of students of color, and role in growing ethnic studies at Harvard.

The denial led activists to intensify their tactics, occupying University Hall and the Admissions and Financial Aid Office and interrupting a faculty meeting.

Hundreds of students also penned an open letter to administrators demanding they reverse the decision and open an investigation for “procedural errors, prejudice, and discrimination” in the tenure case.

The open letter connected García Peña’s tenure case to two other incidents, including a note left at her office that challenged her right to be at Harvard and an interaction between her students and Harvard University Police in Harvard Yard.

Hundreds of ethnic studies scholars within and outside Harvard have also signed letters condemning the decision to deny García Peña tenure.

On Dec. 9, in the wake of the protests, Gay emailed FAS affiliates declaring an “institutional commitment” to ethnic studies, stating that she would support faculty who wanted to create an undergraduate concentration in the discipline.

—Staff writer Camille G. Caldera can be reached at camille.caldera@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @camille_caldera.