Harvard Faculty Duke It Out in a School Newspaper

It’s not every day that you get to see so many world-class academics go back and forth in a student newspaper. Unless you mean the past couple of weeks. Given the long institutional memory of The Crimson, we were fairly confident that we had seen it all, or at least most of it. But to see so many Harvard professors, who built long and illustrious careers with dedicated research, not be able to utilize those research skills to refrain from inserting themselves into a chaotic and developing situation they knew very little about, is, well, incredulous and concerning.

In watching the entire event unfold, many of us have lost role models whom we looked up to and whose achievements motivated us to become better thinkers and citizens of the world. If it weren’t for seeing everything happen in real time, we might have taken this as an extremely well-written piece of satire.

But alas, we wouldn’t be so lucky.

We are extremely concerned by the implications of their behavior as educators and mentors. It is safe to say that many of us decided to come to Harvard in the first place for an opportunity to be guided by the pantheon of world-class scholars here. What came with this initial decision was our assumption that these professors would care about the educational mission and care for us as students under their guidance. Perhaps we were too entitled in thinking so. We assumed that we would be safe and protected. We’re not so sure of this anymore.

The initial letter supporting John L. Comaroff read, “We are dismayed by Harvard’s sanctions against him and concerned about its effects on our ability to advise our own students.” To publicly defend a colleague who has been accused before is seemingly for our sake. The retraction letter reads, “We failed to appreciate the impact that this would have on our students, and we were lacking full information about the case.” To take back that support is also seemingly for our sake. Between these two statements, we’re not quite sure which one to trust. Actually, we don’t have much trust left at all.

As students, we have been brought into a situation we have no control over. As a student newspaper, we have been deemed a resource for survivors seeking justice, because bad press seems to be a stronger reason to act than the accumulated knowledge of sexual violence on this campus. Between feeling powerless in having our collective name tossed around as justification for the questionable actions of some professors, and beyond angry for the way the three grad students were abused, we are extremely unsettled by the gut feeling that this will likely not be the last time all of this happens.

Title IX policies cannot only be brought up when someone on this campus is exposed for their crimes against members of our community. As long as discussions only happen when real people must come forth and divulge the pain they have suffered — and be injured again by gaslighting attempts to discredit them — we will never be able to develop and maintain robust policies that can protect our community.

Relying on victims to come forward and repeatedly prove the importance of Title IX protections is not only unsustainable but heinous in the way we hold victims accountable when they are not the ones committing harmful actions.

The takeaway, however, is that we must continuously discuss and improve Title IX policies so that they can be useful if they are needed. We cannot give up on looking for better ways to protect our community. Members of our community deserve to thrive and lead fulfilling lives — the guarantee of safety is a bare minimum that should never be threatened. Do not give up on this pursuit, this time actually for our sake.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Have a suggestion, question, or concern for The Crimson Editorial Board? Click here.