By Josie W. ChenHarvard welcomed undergraduates back to campus this fall after nearly 18 months of remote learning, with students and professors returning to the classroom and extracurricular activities resuming in-person programming.
Harvard permitted undergraduates to gather indoors in groups of up to 25 — an increase from the previous limit of 10 people — starting in late October after months of low Covid case counts. The College’s social scene reemerged as students attended parties, celebrated holidays, and resurrected beloved traditions — like attending the Harvard-Yale Game and streaking for Primal Scream.
But as students began to return home for the winter recess, Covid cases surged to their highest-ever point. Some professors moved their final exams online and Harvard offered exclusively grab-and-go dining during the final days of the fall semester.
Amid the uptick, Harvard announced it will require affiliates to receive Covid booster shots during the spring semester and that University operations will move online for the first three weeks of January, though spring semester classes — which begin on Jan. 24 — will not be affected.
—Leah J. Teichholtz, Crimson Staff Writer
By Claire H. GuoFollowing a decade of public pressure, Harvard announced in September that it would allow its remaining investments in the fossil fuel industry to expire, paving the way for the school’s endowment to divest from the sector.
University President Lawrence S. Bacow — who previously opposed divestment — announced the move in a September email to Harvard affiliates, calling financial exposure to the fossil fuel industry imprudent. He wrote that “legacy investments” in the sector made through third-party firms “are in runoff mode,” but declined to use the word divest.
Bacow wrote that the Harvard Management Company — which manages the University’s $53.2 billion endowment — “does not intend” to make future investments in the fossil fuel industry and that the University would not renew HMC’s partnerships with private equity funds that have holdings in the sector. The school has not provided a timeline for the liquidation.
The student group Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard — which has staged protests in support of divestment across campus since its founding in 2012 — declared victory following the announcement.
—Carrie Hsu, Crimson Staff Writer
By Cynthia GuoOne of the country’s best-known public intellectuals, Cornel R. West ’73, left Harvard in 2021 after a tenure dispute. West announced his second departure from the University in March after claiming that the school declined to consider him for tenure.
West told the Boston Globe in February that Harvard rejected his tenure request and instead offered him a ten-year contract with an endowed chair position, which he declined. Soon after, hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students signed onto letters in support of West.
West alleged that he was denied tenure due to his public criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Following the dispute, students and faculty criticized Harvard’s treatment of Black scholars, with some pointing to historical inequities in academia.
West was granted tenure at Harvard in 1993 and went on to serve as a University professor, Harvard’s highest faculty position. But he left the school for Princeton in 2002 following a public conflict with former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers. West returned to Harvard in 2016 as a professor of the practice in public philosophy before leaving in March for the Union Theological Seminary.
University President Lawrence S. Bacow declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding West’s departure, citing confidentiality policies, but defended Harvard’s tenure process.
—Meimei Xu, Crimson Staff Writer
By Mayesha R. SoshiHarvard professor Charles M. Lieber was found guilty in December of lying to federal authorities about his ties to China.
Lieber, a renowned research chemist, was arrested on Harvard’s campus in January 2020 for allegedly lying to federal investigators about his ties to China's Thousand Talents Program — a state-sponsored recruitment initiative aimed at attracting overseas science talent to the country.
A federal jury found Lieber guilty in December of six felony charges, including two counts of making false statements to investigators and four tax offenses. During the week-long trial, prosecutors said Lieber concealed his ties to the TTP in pursuit of money and notoriety.
The Lieber case served as a high-profile test for the Department of Justice’s controversial China Initiative, an anti-espionage crackdown started under the Trump administration that critics have accused of racial bias.
Lieber, who is currently battling incurable lymphoma, will be sentenced at a later hearing. His conviction carries a maximum prison sentence of 26 years and up to $1.2 million in fines.
—Isabella B. Cho, Crimson Staff Writer
By Brendan J. ChapuisThe admissions lawsuit that could determine the future of affirmative action in the United States escalated in 2021 as the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions appealed its suit to the U.S. Supreme Court.
SFFA, which alleges that Harvard discriminates against Asian American applicants, petitioned the Supreme Court in February to take up the case, asking justices to overturn a pair of decisions from lower courts that upheld Harvard’s race-conscious admissions practices.
Harvard filed its brief in opposition in May, arguing that SFFA produced “no persuasive evidence to support its legal claims.” In December, the Biden administration backed Harvard in recommending the Supreme Court reject the petition.
SFFA also asked the Supreme Court in November to hear the Harvard case alongside a similar suit it filed against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, claiming the two cases had “similar or identical issues of importance already pending before the Court.”
—Vivi E. Lu, Crimson Staff Writer
By Angela Dela CruzAfter eight months of negotiations and a three-day strike, Harvard’s graduate student union secured its second contract — a four-year deal with union wins on compensation but losses on union security and non-discrimination provisions.
Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers and the University began negotiating in March. As negotiations dragged on through the summer and into the fall, student workers began organizing for a strike, which roughly 92 percent of voting members authorized in October.
With both parties at an impasse over major union demands, student workers went on strike for the second time in two years from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29. The three-day strike disrupted classes and freshman parents' weekend: student workers ran picket lines in Harvard Yard and Longwood, undergraduates walked out of classes, and protestors disrupted University President Lawrence S. Bacow’s speech to freshmen families.
Just 10 days after its strike, HGSU-UAW announced a second strike deadline in mid-November. Hours before the deadline expired, however, the union and the University reached a tentative agreement. Despite calls from some union members for stronger non-discrimination and union security provisions, HGSU-UAW ultimately ratified the agreement, with 70.6 percent of voters in support.
—Cara J. Chang, Crimson Staff Writer
By Ryan N. GajarawalaU.S. Representative Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) was removed from the Institute of Politics’s Senior Advisory Committee in January after she objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The move came after more than 700 Harvard affiliates petitioned the IOP to disaffiliate with Stefanik.
Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote that his decision to remove Stefanik from the committee, which he made in consultation with IOP Director Mark D. Gearan ’78, was not related to her political ideology or party affiliation, but rather her erroneous voter fraud claims. Elmendorf wrote that he initially asked Stefanik to step down, but she declined.
Stefanik wrote on Twitter that she believed her removal would “erode diversity of thought, public discourse, and ultimately the student experience.”
Stefanik’s removal came as Harvard grappled with fallout from the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., which prompted calls for the University to adopt standards for affiliation.
—Leah J. Teichholtz, Crimson Staff Writer
By Lauren A. SierraAn external committee examining sexual harassment at Harvard found that a “permissive culture regarding sexual harassment” allowed former Government professor Jorge I. Domínguez to continue rising through leadership as he sexually harassed at least 18 women over the course of four decades.
The external committee — commissioned in 2019 to examine the circumstances that enabled decades of harassment by Domínguez — wrote in its final report, released in February, that “pronounced power disparities,” “inadequate reporting mechanisms,” and faculty gender imbalances in the Government Department enabled misconduct.
The review found that Harvard's decentralized structure inhibited knowledge of past misconduct disclosures and reccomended that the University create a “centralized, comprehensive, searchable personnel record." The report also reccomended that Harvard develop a system to monitor individuals accused of misconduct.
In response to the review, four women who were victims to Domínguez's misconduct penned a letter to University President Lawrence S. Bacow calling for changes in how the school investigates sexual misconduct. They wrote that they are “unable in good conscience” to encourage women to use Harvard's current Title IX procedures.
—Mayesha R. Soshi, Crimson Staff Writer
By Steve S. LiBy Thomas MaisonneuveIn the early days of the pandemic, experts offered dire predictions about the toll that Covid-19 might take on Harvard’s finances. But in 2021, the University’s endowment soared to its largest sum ever and the school ended the fiscal year with a $283 million budget surplus.
Harvard’s endowment grew to a record $53.2 billion this year after the Harvard Management Company returned 33.6 percent on its investments for the fiscal year ending in June 2021. Still, Harvard’s endowment returns lagged behind some peer institutions and key financial indices such as the S&P 500. HMC’s CEO, N.P. “Narv” Narvekar, attributed the disparity to the “lower risk” HMC takes in its investments compared to some peer schools.
The budget surplus, announced in the University’s annual financial report in October, marked a striking turn from the $10 million deficit Harvard faced at the end of fiscal year 2020. An influx of current-use gifts from donors and savings on operational costs allowed Harvard to weather a $124 million drop in revenue fueled by losses from housing fewer students on campus.
—Eric Yan, Crimson Staff Writer
By Mariah Ellen D. DimalaluanThe decades-long push for an ethnic studies program at Harvard made slow progress in 2021, as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences authorized the appointment of three faculty candidates specializing in the field.
The hiring search for senior faculty to specialize in Latinx, Asian American, and Muslim studies — initially announced by FAS Dean Claudine Gay in June 2019 — was delayed signifigantly by Covid-19.
The authorization of potential senior candidates represents a key step in the FAS’s promise to hire a cluster of scholars in the field. The move comes following years of students and alumni activism for the creation of a formal ethnic studies program. At present, there is no ethnic studies concentration at Harvard.
Additionally, the FAS announced in September that 10 Asian American alumni gifted over $45 million to expand the FAS’s Asian American studies program. Jeannie Park ’83, president of the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance, wrote in September that the group hoped the donation would help "persuade scholars of Harvard’s commitment to building a serious Ethnic Studies program.”
—Justin Lee, Crimson Staff Writer