Crimson opinion writer

Ian D. Svetkey

Latest Content


Be Careful With Denaming

We would set a dangerous precedent by striking people from our collective memory when we judge that their actions have fallen too far behind a shifting moral line. And, more broadly, we should not define people by their greatest failures, nor conflate the ills of past societies writ large with the personal character of actors born into and constrained by them.


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.


Nothing Happens in Isolation

At the end of the day, the students in quarantine should be the ones who have the virus. And as much as Harvard shifts the blame to undergraduates, they caused their own outbreak with their callous, short-sighted alternative housing policy. They know the right strategy to control Covid-19, because they used it for a year and a half. It’s due time for it to return.


Class of ’24 Frames

Two years ago, the future I’d imagined for myself imploded in 24 frames. Now, I shape my life from its ashes, in a world that bends on the whims of fortune more than I ever thought was possible.