In 2022, professors Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani argued that to reduce violent crime, the U.S. needs to drastically shorten its prison sentences — and increase its police force by half a million officers. Their ideas soon become a flashpoint of online discourse.
For how important they are to Harvard's discussion of safety, and despite their prevalence and accessibility, Harvard's emergency phone system is not something most Harvard students think about day to day. Dotting the grounds like glittering blue breadcrumbs, Harvard’s 530 blue light phones blend in with streetlights and gates and other doodads, becoming just another thing on campus.
Most students aren’t taking Computer Science 124: Data Structures and Algorithms for pride. They’re taking it to fulfill the computer science concentration’s Algorithms requirement. Hence the course’s description as “a necessary evil” in the Q Guide.
“Do we, as a society, have an ethical obligation to create safe spaces and boundaries for particular groups of people?” asks Jocelyn Kennedy, one of the curators of the Harvard Law School library exhibit, “Challenging Our Right to Read.”