Op Eds
Why Oatly Frozen Yogurt Is Not Enough
It’s certainly possible to be vegan on campus – it’s just not a lot of fun. If our University’s mission is to educate the “citizen-leaders” of society, perhaps it should help its alumni lead by the composition of their character and also their plates.
Gun Violence Is a Human Rights Issue
Gun violence is often framed as an issue of mental well-being or unfettered gun access. But why don’t we also view it as a human rights issue?
Bring Back Shutting Up: An Elegy for Mindfulness
For a moment, silence your selfishness and believe. Believe that being a Harvard community could really mean something great — something always to be proud of. Believe that you could be the catalyst for the renaissance this community has been waiting for.
Harvard Needs an Urban Studies Department
Harvard should support students wishing to explore the ever-relevant subject of urban studies. Doing so will enhance students’ understanding of the liberal arts, equip them with tools to resolve grave threats to sustainability and quality of life — and teach them to feel less ashamed the next time they jaywalk.
How Education Is Failing Young Men
I worry about the world that kids around me are being born into. The position of men is not just a men’s issue, just as feminism is not just a women’s issue. And education serves as the foundation upon which change is built. It’s time Harvard invested in it.
This Year’s Most Important Election is Down the Street
A mere 185 votes decided the most recent Cambridge City Council election. This Tuesday, students have significantly more power to redefine our city’s future than many believe.
What It Means to Fit In at Harvard
Coming to Harvard is an adjustment for everyone, but those who come from wealth have a leg up: They already know how to navigate the nuances of an Ivy League school.
Can Protest Be Undemocratic?
Protest, when conducted in the spirit of illuminating marginalized voices, is not undemocratic. It is a symptom that calls us to listen to the silenced voices that cry out.
The Possible Perpetrator in Your Crimson Cart
The Harvard administration’s pattern of punishing professors who have violated sexual harassment policies by putting them on temporary leave, and then quietly allowing them to come back relatively unscathed, further endangers younger students who may be unaware of their professors’ checkered histories.
Why Coming Out Still Matters at Harvard
Because of these myriad impacts of outness, until the rest of the world looks a little more like Kirkland House, the decision of whether to come out will continue to matter, even at — if not especially at — Harvard.
Hustle Harder, Harvard
This way of fetishizing work, this idea that you can’t be successful without struggling like crazy, has become a masochistic obsession so deeply lodged into Harvard culture that we’re starting to believe that it might actually be true.
Social Studies and Embracing Uncertainty
Find motivation in the process itself. Retain hope in the possibility that, even if you as an individual may never write an essay you’re fully content with, your role within a larger context is a productive one. Ask questions, embrace uncertainty, and continue the struggle.
Pro-Israel? Pro-Palestine? You Can Be Both.
How about “free Palestine, free Israel, side by side”? Yes, it’s a little clunky. But it’s unambiguous, it’s humane, and most importantly, it’s the only possible path we have toward ending the cycle of death.
Academic Freedom Prohibits Censorship and Punishment, Not Judgment
The principle of academic freedom gives all members of our community the right to express their opinions without censorship, intimidation, or punishment. It also gives other members of the community the right to rebut those opinions and to draw inferences about the judgment of those expressing them.
In Defense of the Truth
What troubles me about the first speaker’s comments at the vigil, the ones still ringing in my mind, is this reality, a campus where anti-Zionism puts your name and face on a moving wanted poster and support of Israel puts your name and face in the New York Times.
Harvard Students Are Failing History
This ignorance has led to statements that are, at best, misinformed and, at worst, deeply dangerous. For that, I can only advise my fellow classmates that, if they want to be on the right side of history, they should know history — specifically the history of Jewish people in Israel — first.
No, You Don’t Need To Be President.
It is time for Harvard affiliates to take the backseat in our pursuit of political leadership. That’s right: Harvard students should seek public office less often.
A Call for Empathy
Israel is a beautiful nation whose government has committed unspeakable crimes. For many, only half of that sentence will register — but the fights for Palestinian and Israeli self-determination need not be mutually exclusive.
Seven Tenured HBS Faculty Speak Out
As tenured HBS faculty, we never imagined we’d need to speak out anonymously about our own institution. But our questions demand answers, and for the protection of ourselves, our colleagues, and our principles, we have been left with no other choice.
An Educator’s Obligation
As a rabbi and Harvard College graduate, I am dismayed at President Gay’s continued refusal to publicly rebuke her students who signed on to the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee’s statement last week.
To Kill a Child
Condemning an attack without addressing, or even trying to understand, the factors that triggered it only lets the stain grow. It’s an exercise in virtue signaling, a social media-attuned flattening of a hideous reality — one unlikely to save the next generation of innocents.
For Gaza’s Fate, Heed the Sri Lankan Civil War
In the end, the true test of a liberal democracy is our ability to hold other countries accountable for their actions, not just when they are our enemies, but even — especially — when they are our allies.
Indeed, There Is No Justification
I agree with my classmates who firmly stated that “there is no justification” for such terrorism. Yet, I cannot help but notice that the world has not yet come to believe that there is no justification for the slaughtering and forced removal of Palestinians, either.
Don’t Bully Students With Dissenting Views. Protect Them.
We believe the students made a poor choice. But those of us with powerful positions and years of experience should use a mistake as a teachable moment, not an opportunity to intimidate.
When Big Names Drown Out Big Ideas
Our campus’s coveting of stardom and the allure of big names highlights a deeper issue: an excessive reverence for prestige, regardless of substance.