Prominent scholars at Harvard signed a letter questioning the university’s treatment of a professor who was sanctioned. In a new statement, nearly all said they wish to retract their signatures.
In 2015, Juan A. Espinoza, a current third-year student at Harvard Law School, spent his summer participating in one of the Law Schoolâs enrichment programs. Espinoza recalled walking through a famous hall where the portraits of professors were displayed. He remembers asking himself how it was possible there was so little representation.
âHow crazy is it that there isnât a single Latino up on these walls?â Espinoza said. âI remember having a very visual image of custodial staff â two Latino immigrants â cleaning the portraits of these professors and yet, there being no one from my community or any Latino immigrants represented on the faculty.â
Photograph by Peter Vanderwarker
Town and Gown
The section on capital projects in the 2020 edition of Harvard’s annual “Town Gown Report” to the City of Cambridge in recent years chock-full of construction work planned or in progress, thanks to The Harvard Campaign and continuing programs like House renewal suddenly reflects a far narrower pipeline. Beyond the second and third stages of the
Adams House renewal, nothing is on the horizon. This reflects both Harvard’s rotation toward Allston and the severe reduction in capital spending in response to the pandemic’s financial impact. The Eliot and Kirkland House renewals now look unlikely before late in the decade. Similarly, the projection of faculty members based in Cambridge shown in the 2019 report as 2,100 to 2,200 for the year 2024 is now 2,000 to 2,200 for 2025. There is no change in full-time equivalents, but the lower midpoint overall may reflect both relocating engineering and applied sciences professors to Al
UPDATED: March 11, 2021 at 2:15 p.m.
Eighteen Harvard affiliates â including Cornel R. West â74, Steven A. Pinker, and Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. â signed on as founding members of a new nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending academicsâ freedom of expression.
The Academic Freedom Alliance, which officially launched Monday, arose out of conversations among professors at Princeton University about free speech on college campuses. By invitation, 17 current Harvard faculty and one incoming Harvard Law School professor joined the initiative.
Keith E. Whittington â a professor of politics at Princeton who formerly taught at HLS and serves as the chair of Allianceâs Academic Committee â said the associationâs founding was motivated by a âsteady drumbeat of faculty who found themselves under threat because of something they had said or done or taught.â