Op Eds
Artificial Education
Machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends.
HMS, Leaving Politics at the Door Harms Our Patients
HMS’s choice to remain politically neutral discourages and underprepares its students to tackle pressing health related problems that require political change.
We’re Harvard WGS Alumni. Our Field Has Never Mattered More.
At Harvard, the single biggest threat to the study of gender and sexuality has long come from the institution itself.
The Future of the Liberal Arts Lies Beyond Harvard’s Gates
As its pipeline towards self-serving occupations only grows, the College is overdue for a profound reevaluation of philosophy and policy. But the administration’s apparent wariness to impress specific values upon students stands in its own way.
From 457 Dudley Affiliates: The Co-op Must Stay
As the future of the Co-op remains uncertain, we feel compelled to say: our home is and must remain a vital part of the campus ecosystem.
In Defense of the Harvard College Writing Center
As current and former Harvard College Writing Center tutors, we write to condemn the dissolution of the Writing Center as an independent entity and the laying off of its director, Jane Rosenzweig.
Cambridge Schools Need a New AI Policy. It Should Look Like This.
At the risk of sounding alarmist, any use of generative AI by students is a step towards cognitive offloading and diminished educational returns. Cambridge Public Schools must make every effort to minimize this threat.
Government Should Work for You. That Starts With Transparency.
The goal of transparency is to show people whether those they elected are doing the work they promised. Even in a system where change takes time, I have a record of delivering on those promises.
Cambridge Deserves Better From Beacon Hill
I know what it’s like to work for an institution that hides behind closed doors. The decisions on Beacon Hill affect our daily lives, and residents deserve to know who is making them.
Cambridge Can Build Housing and Grow Trees, Too
With the political will to update the policies protecting our urban canopy, we can optimize our limited space to achieve more housing and a shaded city, making Cambridge a healthier and more equitable place to live.
Harvard and Epstein: A Call for Repair From 156 Harvard Affiliates
We are committed to using our positions within Harvard to advance truth-telling, accountability, repair and institutional reform in relation to Harvard’s ties to Epstein and those who enabled him.
From the City Manager: Protecting Cambridge Means Responsive and Proactive Policy
Power brokers in Washington may be able to shift national policies at a whim, but they do not have the power to rewrite Cambridge’s values.
Harvard and Cambridge Must Stand Together
Cambridge residents may be wont to let Harvard administrative decisions stay behind the brick arches, students more apt to focus on national politics than rally for local legislation. But for both Cambridge and Harvard to thrive, each needs the other.
Stop Backtracking on Housing, Cambridge
The road towards housing affordability is long, and progress may be slow, but Cambridge owes it to the young people who have made this city home. An unceasing effort towards development will get us there.
There’s No Room for Palestine in “Viewpoint Diversity”
Harvard’s guiding imperative is defending the restoration of $3 billion in federal grants, which apparently means appeasing those in the Trump administration who have decreed that any discussion of Palestinian rights is by definition antisemitic.
Only Advocacy Can Bring Accountability
For the Class of 2026, our four years have been defined by devastating attacks on women and queer students — and feminists and survivors stepping up where Harvard has failed.
Reflections on Half a Century of Progress
For all the crises and doomers and existential threats that may darken graduation day, it’s good to recall that past graduation days were darkened by crises that were as bad or worse. Still, those graduates saw their way through to a better world.
Our Democracy Will Survive — If You Fight
Our republic will survive, so long as good people still believe in the power of the people. This 250-year-old story will continue, so long as you keep finding a way to get in the way.
I Led The Crimson. The News Transformed Harvard.
I’ve had a front row seat to Harvard’s relentless trips through the news cycle over the past four years, and while I was often skeptical of criticisms coming from outside, I believe they are largely pushing the University to transform for the better.
A Tale of Two Commencements
Do you care about multiracial democracy, about science and public health, about gender equity, about free speech? Then you care about universities. And it’s vitally important that you keep caring about universities, even as you’re leaving this one.
Silence Only Makes the Echo Chamber Louder
My four semesters writing for The Crimson taught me that it is far more important — and enjoyable — to voice your heterodox viewpoints than it is to remain silent.
Graduates, Don’t Stop Learning
Whether or not you further your formal schooling, learning remains your most important job. Your ability to impact the world will depend on the knowledge and skills you absorb from experience and interaction.
A Fundamental Reckoning Awaits the Humanities. It Shouldn’t Alarm Us.
The next decade might be the most important time for the humanities in history. Instead of sweeping top-down changes in the name of progress or utility, the ship must right itself.
AI Is Not Our Destiny. You Are.
In education, as in work and life, AI multiplies your options. Some of those options are great. Some are terrible. The challenge for your graduating class is finding more of the great and fewer of the terrible ones.
The Upside of Being Conservative at Harvard
There is no point in expending tremendous energy to assemble more diverse viewpoints on campus only for Harvard students — perhaps out of fear, or out of complacency — to engage with the views with which they already agree.
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