Dementia Caregiving
About Lydialyle Gibson’s “Caring for the Caregivers” (January-February, page 14): What a wonderful piece!
I am one of those who did 10 years of caregiving with a lovely lady who is now in memory care, and I wrote about my experiences in Waltzing with Alzheimer’s (2024), a cathartic exercise I hoped would help me heal.
Gibson’s article brought back all of the frustrations associated with caregiving for a loved one with dementia. I always hurt, because my loving family never seemed to know how to engage me/us while I was going through this long process. And while I witnessed many valiant efforts by paid caregivers to assist us, too many of them just didn’t understand the complexities of dementia and how to preserve and enhance the dignity of those who experience this damnable disease. I also felt anger at the Alzheimer’s Association’s constant propaganda that they were on the verge of discovering a cure, when researchers don’t even agree on the causes. I’m all for research, but it seemed to me that more of the money raised should go to training caregivers.
Finally, how can we support the present model of care? Either the family suffers financially, socially, and psychologically, or they incarcerate their loved one in a facility at a cost only few can afford. Thanks for aiming the spotlight on these issues. The problem is not going away any time soon.
Daniel Tyler ’55
Highlands Ranch, Colo.
Thank you for the article on dementia and the care crisis, including the information on resources for caregivers. When author Lydialyle Gibson mentioned workforce shortages, I immediately thought of all the Haitian immigrant women who cared for my mother in the final seven years of her life with dementia. You could well report further on how immigrants and immigration policy affect home care.
P.R. Falcao, M.P.H. ’90
Needham, Mass.
Thanks for this article. My wife of 51-plus years, Ann, just entered a long-term care facility this past week, after a seven-plus-year caregiving experience with increasingly progressive dementia. My ability to care for her at home, which was my firm intention, even with good help, just ran out.
By “good help” I mean almost daily, competent, licensed independent caregivers, whom we could afford because we obtained very good long-term care insurance in 2003 (one probably can’t find policies with these benefits now). It’s made all the difference; better care for Ann, free time for me. I’m in two support groups, and I concur with the sentiments in the article that they’re an invaluable resource.
But most of my group mates do not have long-term care insurance. The societal needs for care across age cohorts are so manifest as to seriously suggest the need for a program of subsidized national care insurance: offered at attractive rates to young adults, drawn on for daycare and preschool, built back up over a few decades to support aging parents, and finally for your own account.
I’m not an insurance expert, but basic economics suggests that widespread availability of care funds would foster growth in the quality of resources to provide it.
Tom Mannle, M.P.A. ’77
Gloucester, Mass.
Thank you for this fine and timely article on caregiving. I was one of them for seven-and-a-half years, from my wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis until her needs exceeded my abilities and she entered a memory care facility. I particularly welcomed the good word that the article has for support groups. Two of them have eased my task for several years, a live one sponsored by a local hospital and one on Zoom from a more distant hospital.
It’s comforting to listen to other caregivers talk about doing the best they can with similar problems, and it reduces my guilt for my inevitable failures. The others have given me useful advice, and I hope I’ve given them some. It has also helped to know that it’s OK to grieve a lot. Two nuggets: you only need to be patient with your person 60 percent of the time, and your caregiving does not end when your person moves into a facility.
Malcolm Bell ’53, LL.B. ’58
Randolph Center, Vt.
It was interesting and heartening to read of Dr. Ritchie’s invaluable work developing the Dementia Care Collaborative at MGH, and the details of caregivers’ experiences described are heartrending. Ritchie’s work to develop a “gerineuropalliative” approach to dementia care makes sense.
But I wish the article had provided a list of resources beyond the world of Harvard. To name a few I became aware of during my seven years as a spousal caregiver: the periodical Brain and Life provides a wealth of information; WellSpouse.org, a nonprofit specifically targeted to spousal caregivers which has been running support groups for many years; and the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration and Alzheimer’s Association are excellent resources. Arthur Kleinman’s The Soul of Care (which Gibson mentions) is only one of a flood of powerful books about caregiving. Dasha Kiper’s superb Travelers to Unimaginable Lands is an outstanding recent example. This and other specific guidance for the perplexed and the desperate would have been useful.
Rachel Hadas ’69
New York City
Author of Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry
I read the article about dementia and caregiving and want to share some potentially helpful information. I have developed expertise over the years in the field of emotional intelligence. I began working in the late 1990s with the pioneering psychologist who first introduced emotional intelligence to the world in 1990, Yale president emeritus Peter Salovey. I created the Emotion Roadmap, a process that guides individuals and organizations in ways that profoundly impact emotion management. I am currently working with a Yale faculty member in the School of Public Health who specializes in caregiving and has a specific focus on dementia and Alzheimer’s. She believes strongly that the Emotion Roadmap I have created can be enormously helpful to people suffering from these diseases and to those who care for them. We are at the beginning stages of validating this idea.
At the same time, I recently was asked to write a blog post for the International Essential Tremor Foundation about my own experiences with the beginning stages of caregiving with my wife, who has Essential Tremor. The short article incorporates some of the lessons I have learned over the years that I believe may be useful to your readers who are dealing with debilitating diseases (https://essentialtremor.org/what-does-it-take-to-be-an-excellent-caretaker-radical-compassion/).
Charles Wolfe, Ed ’86
Simsbury, Conn.
My wife died recently from Alzheimer’s after eight years of home care, so I’m heartened to read such a beautiful cover story that captures the demands and emotional turmoil of dementia care. Moreover, it’s inspiring to witness the palpable empathy for caregivers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), as well as its current caregiver-support programs and its recognition that dementia care is in crisis. It’s surprising, however, that there’s so little discussion in the article of what MGH plans to do differently to rise to the escalating crisis of caregiving. Understanding, empathy, and support are essential first steps, but they are not a comprehensive strategy for addressing the tsunami ahead. In my view, the time is ripe for MGH to map a bold new future by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of its existing caregiver programs and by learning from best practices around the world. Moreover, one can imagine MGH inventing new initiatives—e.g., both online and Zoom-based programs that not only provide support but also build caregiver skills, like self-compassion and anchoring oneself in the present moment. I hope this sense of urgency is shared by MGH’s top brass and that comprehensive stocktaking is under way. If so, MGH can play a major role in meeting the escalating caregiving crisis, as well as maintain its position of leadership in the care of caregivers.
Jerome T. Murphy, Ed.D. ’73
Cambridge Howe Professor of Education and Dean emeritus, Harvard Graduate School of Education
As one who has been on the Alzheimer’s journey with my wife for 17 years, I welcome the light the author shed on the little recognized emerging crisis presented by the growth of Alzheimer’s and other dementia cases beyond the nation’s ability to provide care. I agree that family caregivers face such enormous challenges that they can become the “invisible second patient” described in the article. The often impossible financial hardships of caregiving are well described, as is the lack of clinical resources trained to help family caregivers negotiate the confusing and stressful task that has been thrust upon them.
The author’s suggested approaches to better care for caregivers focuses on ideas to provide clinicians better strategies to help caregivers. She also mentions the efforts of Dementia Care Collaborative at Mass General Brigham that encourages the formation of lay support groups where family caregivers can exchange experiences and solutions. I was surprised the author did not highlight the Alzheimer’s Association, which supports hundreds of support groups across the country, including one which has been a key source of reliable information as well as invaluable emotional support during our experience. They have developed seminar presentations to help caregivers learn best practices for the care of both the caregiver and the one living with dementia. They even have a 24/7 helpline for caregivers which provides referrals to sources of home care, respite care, clinical trial access, and other needed aid in all parts of the country. My experience suggests that these efforts to enlist and train lay resources to address this emerging crisis are likely to deploy large-scale resources long before the medical community can negotiate the complicated process required to field clinically certified aid.
Ken Rees ’64
Edmond, Okla.
Relative to the care crisis:
As we age
we skate on water
what was solid thins,
each added day
a subtraction.
Where it ends,
when it ends,
what is left|
is the clear
wholeness of drowning.
Jacqueline Clark ’76
Cohasset, Mass.
In “Caring for the Caregivers,” Gibson breathes much-needed life into the concept—and the reality—of “the second patient.” This term aptly describes caregivers in the sandwich generation, tasked with caring for both parents and children within a staggeringly ill-equipped healthcare system.
By 2034, for the first time in U.S. history, people over 60 will outnumber those under 18. This “silver tsunami” will crash against our shores, with Social Security teetering on insolvency, Medicaid and Medicare in the political crosshairs, and aging baby boomers navigating a healthcare system that often prioritizes profits over people.
Even if we find some magical fiscal elixir, the structural gaps are glaring. Currently, there are just 1.7 million beds in senior care facilities—an alarming statistic given the 80 million seniors we’ll need to serve by 2050. This will leave countless elderly Americans scrambling for care in what promises to be a brutal “squid game” of musical chairs.
If the true measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members, then collective enlightenment is needed…and quickly. The very forces extending our lifespans—science and technology—have also fragmented the extended family, limiting its caregiving bandwidth. As Christine Ritchie rightly highlights, unpaid family caregivers (the “second patient” and mainly women) will remain indispensable. Yet addressing this crisis will also require robust teams of caregivers: chaplains, rabbis, imams, home-health aides, therapists, psychologists, social workers, churches, community organizations, support groups, and, simply, compassionate citizens.
Because most care happens locally, the development of twenty-first-century platforms—like Alula’s—for coordinating these resources will be both critical and integral to meeting the challenge. Let us ensure that we rise to the moment, prioritizing dignity, support, and care…for the vulnerable among us.
Mark Cave, M.T.S. ’89
COO | Alula
Charlottesville, Va.
I was interested to read the article about dementia care. My mother was diagnosed with dementia many years ago, and in the early years her care fell primarily to my father. With six children scattered and busy with their own lives, my father took care of my mother. I remember early on telling him how much I appreciated all his efforts, and he simply replied, “It’s what you do.” My siblings and I would help with weekly visits and some meal prep, and helping with doctor appointments, but he was the primary caregiver. As my mother’s health declined, we finally convinced my father he needed help. He went with us to look at assisted living facilities, but after years of delivering Communion at various nursing homes, he didn’t want that for his wife of 50 years. He agreed to start out with a home health aide two hours twice a week, which pretty much did nothing. But it did open the door and as time went on, he had an aide in the home 11 hours a day, seven days a week. My family is grateful and fortunate that my parents were wise in their saving and spending, so that they could afford the $100,000-plus annual cost. And after many frustrating experiences with bad aides, we found a solid reliable aide who could handle my mother and not take things personally when she acted out.
Side note: I was frustrated how many times at doctors’ offices and hospital stays that I needed to say—in front of my mother—“She has dementia.” She didn’t know she had dementia and would get upset, so I learned to say it quietly, or say it quickly in the hallway. Sure, there might be a note in her file, but with so many staff and shifts parading through her room, that level of detail was rarely known. A simple solution would be to put a sign over her hospital bed, one that she couldn’t see, so that she wouldn’t get upset. I understand they don’t want to exclude her from her care, but beyond her birthdate which she knew right up until the end, she simply wasn’t aware of what was going on.
When my mother finally passed from cancer in 2023, our focus turned to my father, who by then also had early dementia. When my mother was receiving hospice in the end, I met with a social worker who asked if we needed help with anything. I shared that we were struggling with how to tell my dad he couldn’t live on his own and that we wanted him to come live with me and my husband. No further help was offered, and we muddled through on our own.
Once again, I find that not knowing you have dementia is part of the challenge. My father doesn’t understand that he shouldn’t drive anymore. He doesn’t understand why we are getting a large print newspaper or hearing aids (as both his hearing and eyesight are failing). Honestly, I don’t think he knows how much time has passed, and he thinks he is “just visiting.” Other times he laments that he is “baggage” or a “burden.’ I try to reassure him he is neither. And I finally had to tell my siblings that every time I vented about some minor situation with my dad, I didn’t want them to ask me, “Is it time for assisted living?” For sure, that time will come, but stop asking me every other week. For now, I am happy that we can provide him a loving home where we can take care of his meals, his laundry, his pills, enrichment, and doctors’ appointments. I am not really sure what lies down the road for us, despite having experience with my mother. Much like autism, dementia is a spectrum; it won’t manifest in everyone the same way. That being said, I am sure I can learn from and get support from others and I’m definitely going to check out some of the resources mentioned in the article.
Maria F. Biancheri, M.P.P. ’96
Annandale, N.J.
You got my attention! Kudos for celebrating Dr. Christine Ritchie’s work and kudos for putting dementia issues on the front page of the magazine. However, your article left me feeling helpless and hopeless.
I am not a caregiver for someone with dementia, but I am a gerontologist and served as the Secretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Aging and Independence from 2019 to 2024. During that time, I also chaired the Massachusetts Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s and All Related Dementias.
Readers of the Harvard Magazine are caregivers, people with dementia, people fearing dementia, leaders, and employers. We need systems level change so that caregivers can access support groups and other services.
Above all else, caregivers need access to respite care for their loved one. I have heard again and again that a predictable 2-3 hour segment every week can make a world of difference.
I offer a few ideas that could be a “call to action” for your readers, to instill hope about a better future where caregiving is normalized and respected by every community to which we belong.
Readers across the country (and around the world) have the power to make small and large changes in their place of work by acknowledging that some caregivers care for children while others care for older adults.
Harvard’s own Joseph Fuller and team showed attractive returns on investment for companies investing in caregivers https://www.pw.hks.harvard.edu/post/healthy-outcomes-how-employers-supp….
Lisa Kaplowitz and Kate Mangino wrote about the positive characteristics caregivers provide to the workplace https://hbr.org/2023/08/research-caregiver-employees-bring-unique-value….
The magazine could provide readers with a short list of resources to access respite care. For example,
The Alzheimer’s Association staffs a 24/7 helpline. Sometimes, a caregiver needs to talk to someone “in the moment” to relieve stress, gain helpful tips about a situation, or attain a referral for longer-term support.
Federal resources such as the Elder Care Locator https://eldercare.acl.gov/Public/Index.aspx and the National Institute on Aging https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/alzheimers-and-dementia/about-adear-center have well-vetted information and resources that caregivers can read and re-read as they absorb the initial shock of a diagnosis.
Policymakers could provide tax relief to acknowledge the economic value that caregivers provide and offer parity with caring for children. For example, we can take a childcare tax credit or use pretax dollars to pay for day-care. However, these benefits are not available when caring for an older adult or when paying for adult day care. The financial and emotional load of caregiving for an older adult can have longstanding negative consequences if caregivers leave their jobs; caregivers need to remain in the workforce so that they can afford to pay for their own care in the future.
Thank you for highlighting caregiving for loved ones with dementia. I hope my suggestions are helpful.
Elizabeth Chen, M.P.H. ’12, Ph.D., M.B.A.
Lexington, Mass.
Thanks to Lydialyle Gibson for raising the important discussion of the caregivers as the “second patient” when it comes to a dementia diagnosis who remain “largely absent from this conversation, overlooked and understudied.” In younger-onset dementia, where symptoms begin before the age of 65, there is not only the “second patient” in the spouse, there is often a third and fourth patient in the children. Younger-onset dementia is really a diagnosis of the entire family. Unlike in typical dementia when the diagnosed and caregiver are older and often retired, in younger-onset, diagnosis occurs in people’s thirties, forties, and fifties—at the peak of their careers, often with young children. Overnight, the spouse becomes the primary caregiver, single parent, and sole breadwinner. Gibson shares, “Financial worries magnify every other difficulty for people looking after someone with dementia. In surveys about caregivers' sources of stress, money routinely tops the list, above the anxiety of coordinating medical appointments or the struggle to take a break, or even their own need for emotional support.”
Ritchie says, “In working with caregivers, I have seen how many times people feel so alone, so disenfranchised,“ and “They lack the efficacy to know what to do. And often they don’t have the kind of self-compassion that’s warranted for the difficult journey that they’re on.” As Ritchie’s research details, as the disease progresses, the caregivers become even more isolated because the “friendships and social networks fall away.” Gibson continues, “That separation from the rest of the world becomes a gnawing sadness.”
And the solution Ritchie recommends is support groups–a “crucial source of comfort, community, and information for caregivers who often feel isolated and in the dark.” At Lorenzo’s House, the model we have developed for supporting the sons, daughters, and their families—patients 2, 3, and 4—affected by younger-onset dementia are our Light Clubs: virtual hangouts where caregivers find community, share resources and bring light. A 12-year-old from Chicago shared, “When I was 10, I found the Light Club. Ever since, it has helped me learn how to show light to my Dad and how to cope with all of my stress and emotions.”
Thanks again for this critical piece highlighting the caregiver as the second patient. As we have more inclusive discussions, let’s remember patients 3 and 4 when we talk about younger-onset dementia.
Stephanie Clark Fitzgerald ’91
Impact & Operations Lead, Lorenzo’s House
Montclair, N.J
Postseason Football
In reference to “Harvard Football Goes Bowling,” about postseason competition, I’d like to see Harvard discontinue football altogether, not add another life-threatening opportunity. To wit: a good mind is a terrible thing to waste. Moreover, the payments to college athletes distract from the true mission of colleges and universities: enlightenment. Let those who seek athletic prowess at the expense of their health pursue other institutions. We know enough now that football and sports with head trauma are “unsafe at any speed.” We ditched college boxing, didn’t we?
Kurt Lauenstein ’73
Greensboro, N.C.
Harvard Feminism
Undergraduate correspondent Yasmeen A. Kahn reports that the new Harvard Feminist Coalition has organized around campus sexual violence, reproductive rights, and Palestinian Liberation (“Beyond Empowerment,” January-February, page 53). This last is an odd issue for feminists when so many women’s issues are being ignored. If the coalition is really concerned about the Middle East, they might consider opposing mandatory wearing of the burqa and limitations on girls’ education in Afghanistan as well as mandatory use of the hijab in Iran. Should they wish to range further they might consider that, according to UNICEF, 230 million girls have suffered genital mutilation worldwide.
They might, however, work on issues closer to home: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women in the U.S. still earn only 83.6 percent of males’ compensation. Or why not focus on Harvard where, according to the Faculty Development & Diversity Office, only 30 percent of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ professors are women?
I hope that young Harvard women can be leaders in the battle for women’s equality at Harvard, in the United States, and in the world beyond. Sadly, women and girls as well as men and boys are being killed in wars in many countries, but this is not a feminist issue.
Ann Shapiro ’58, M.A.T. ’60
New York City
Sustaining Speech
The 7 Ware Street column is consistently excellent. “Category Errors” (January-February, page 5) is particularly important. Having been on the faculty at three universities, and having held a variety of administrative leadership positions, I strongly endorse the criticism of having Harvard’s executive vice president issue the free speech/demonstration policy, rather than someone in a faculty leadership role do so. Harvard’s announcement was inappropriate and tone-deaf. I note further that it was disrespectful and dismissive of those wanting to protest, because it casts such protests as merely an administrative issue, not a moral one. I also applaud the column’s larger point about the additional “category errors”—cases where various Harvard actors misjudge where to direct their political energy and how to respond to that. Students outraged by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extended response to Hamas’s attack would benefit from having a much better sense of the levers of power in the United States and the world and directing their efforts accordingly. Attacking their own University, when it has such a small role in the matters of interest, is bound to be ineffective, personally demoralizing because of that failure, and broadly destructive of other things they value.
Gregory A. Miller ’75
Los Angeles
Settler Colonialism
The January-February Open Book presents an excerpt from On Settler Colonialism by Adam Kirsch ’97. The brief three-sentence introduction written by the magazine repeats—and provides free advertising to—his argument that “the ideology of settler colonialism” is “a contested term and form of analysis.”
By characterizing the concept of settler colonialism as an “ideology,” Kirsch irresponsibly and polemically attacks what is in fact a nuanced conceptual and historiographic framework—now well-established in the scholarly literature across multiple disciplines—which has helped make sense of damning imperial cruelties and their ideologies. He does so in a short, trade press book that does not hold itself to scholarly standards (e.g., peer review) and in which the author’s own Zionist ideological commitments are presented as common sense.
It is disappointing that the magazine appears not to recognize (or has chosen not to acknowledge) Kirsch’s book for what it is, i.e., an effort to shut down de-colonial scholarship. Notably, in its brief presentation of the excerpt from Kirsch’s book, the magazine offers no disclaimer statement.
It is especially disappointing that Harvard Magazine has chosen to feature Kirsch’s attack on critical scholarly analysis of Israel’s settler colonial regime at a time when much of the rest of the world is focused on that regime’s documented genocide in Gaza and its escalating decades-long crimes of apartheid and illegal occupation. In offering a platform for provoking a tendentious debate, this editorial choice serves to deflect attention from the horrific crimes being committed by the Israeli settler colonial regime, crimes being committed with the U.S. media’s complicity.
Leila Kawar ’98
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Housing Costs
The November-December 2024 cover story focused on unaffordable housing in America. Did you notice that the inside cover of the January-February 2025 issue was a realty ad for homes in Cambridge? The six homes pictured average $8,755,000 and average more than 4,000 square feet. Perhaps restraint would be a better solution for the current housing crisis. Seventy-five ago, after World War II, the average new American home was 983 square feet. During the Roaring Twenties, it was 1,000 square feet. Two hundred years ago, the average home was 500 to 800 square feet. Harvard’s beloved Henry David Thoreau, A.B. 1837, offered the wisest advice: “Simplify, simplify.” He should know: his home-built cabin on Walden Pond made him famous but was only 10 by 15 feet. Less can be more.
Pastor Paul Hegele, Th.M. ’76
Lee’s Summit, Mo.
The HJAA Report, Continued
The January-February 2025 issue contains a letter from Harvard graduate Ira Stoll ’94 (whom I have never met) criticizing an editorial in the previous issue asserting as fact that “members of Congress and of the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) have recycled factually preposterous reports that billions of dollars from…‘Middle Eastern anti-democratic governments’ have warped Harvard’s policies and positions.”
“Factually preposterous” is a harsh retort to a reader (and somewhat nonsensical because what other kinds of “preposterous” are there other than factual) on an issue that has, after all, seriously stained Harvard’s reputation and caused its Jewish students and alumni intense anxiety since October 2023.
But even worse is that your editors (and the University itself) could have resolved the matter by disclosing all donations and contributions to Harvard coming from the Middle East in the past several decades. They didn’t and the University never has. This mystifies me: as Harvard’s official publication and its major funder, your editors could certainly have asked the University for that information.
Yet your angry and petty response to Stoll discloses no such information and instead demands we accept an anonymous and unsubstantiated claim that “according to the University, [the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies] received no funding from any foreign governments or allied entities” from 2020 to 2023. Those artfully selected words, along with the complete absence of any donation data, could easily conceal large amounts of Middle Eastern government money flowing to the University and then transferred to CMES, or lavish donations from Middle Eastern citizens whom Harvard does not identify as “allied entities” of the regional governments.
How about giving your readers real information rather than belittling readers who disagree with you?
Mark Rutzick, J.D. ’73
Reston, Va.
Editor’s note: The magazine is a separately incorporated nonprofit corporation, with its own governance, not “Harvard’s official publication.” It does not have access to records of undisclosed donations. Nor does it have reason to doubt the University statement on contributions to the Center—particularly because the critical claims about its support are wholly out of scale with the scope of its operations. The gifts Stoll listed in no way change that conclusion, and in some cases pertain to institutions other than Harvard.
The January-February issue included a comment critical of a “7 Ware Street” column that addressed our U.S. Congress and the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance in the context of funds contributed to Harvard from foreign entities. The author of the comment concluded that such funds may have caused Harvard’s policies and positions to be warped. Editor John S. Rosenberg provided a response. I write to express my view that the editor and staff of Harvard Magazine have put together and publish a very fine college magazine. My sense is the articles are well written, substantively meaningful and accurate, though of course opinion is presented in the 7 Ware Street column. The publication relates well to Harvard and its students, includes appropriate historic highlights and, to its credit, is often humorous. I read several university magazines in order as an older person to keep abreast of colleges and relevant topics. Of the several college publications I try to read, I consider the Harvard publication to be the best (though I also think very highly of the publications generated by the University of Pennsylvania). As to the criticism above referenced, my sense is that the editor responded fairly and accurately.
Don Bergmann, J.D. ’66
Westport, Conn.
Academic Freedom
As a graduate of Harvard Law School, where I learned about the First Amendment, I’m shocked and saddened by Harvard’s recent announcement that it is adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which confuses criticism of Israel or Zionism with truly antisemitic speech (see “Harvard Settles Antisemitism Lawsuits,” online January 22, 2025. Harvard even explicitly states that it is adopting some of the extreme examples of “antisemitism” given by the IHRA, such as applying a “double standard“ to the actions of Israel or questioning the validity of the basic Zionist enterprise.
It’s hard to think of more obvious examples of essential discussion about human rights in the world today than Israel’s destruction of most habitations in Gaza, its killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians and reduction of the surviving population to near-famine, and its illegal policy of forcibly removing Palestinians from their land and homes in the West Bank in order to make room for ever more Israeli settlers. Yet any such discussions at Harvard now, if they take place at all, will be markedly one-sided, and fraught with fears of punishment. At Harvard now, one would even be at risk in citing the decisions of the International Court of Justice, which last year found it “plausible” that Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza amounted to genocide.
Part of Harvard’s motivation was evidently settling a lawsuit; another factor was probably the political beating that former president Claudine Gay took before a witchhunting House of Representatives committee last fall; and I fear that a third factor was President Trump’s threat to deprive elite universities of Title VI funding if they don’t, under the guise of combating antisemitism, in fact suppress criticism of Israel or Zionism.
It’s a sad day for academic freedom, and for Harvard to cave in to these political pressures is especially disheartening.
Marjorie Heins, J.D. ’78
New York City
Author of Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge
Ivy Athletes and Athletics
Jonathan Shaw’s “Why Ivy Athletes Score in Careers” (November-December 2024, page 10) should be retitled “Much Ado About Almost Nothing.” The author informs us Harvard athletes earn 3.4 percent more than their non-athletic classmates. Alas, the author leaves out two vital pieces of information: 1) The average salary to which this percentage applies ($100,100, according to PayScale). 2) What this 3.4 percent means in cold, hard cash (0.034 X $100,100 = $3,403). Gimme a break—an extra 10 bucks a day after busting your butt for hours every day five, six, or seven days a week during the most vital four years of your life when you could have been boozing, snoozing, courting, etc. To close on a final gloomy note: vigorous exercise during a man’s youth significantly increases his risk of atrial fibrillation—a disability that increases the risk of a stroke or death. John Gamel ’66 Louisville, Ky.
With respect to “The End of the Ivy League?” (November-December 2024, page 32), neither Harvard nor any of the other Ivies has had a nationally competitive football team for over 50 years. So what’s the big deal? If the biggest problem is NIL money, Harvard’s wealthy alumni and its billions in the endowment could easily equal the SEC’s payment for its starting 11. Basketball money would even be easier. I am not implying my support for the current NCAA system; just encouraging acceptance of reality and either “play ball” or “go home.” The system long ago relegated Harvard nationally uncompetitive in the major sports; and within the last two decades has pushed other institutions like my undergraduate school, Georgia Tech, to the ranks of the uncompetitive as well.
Jeff Pope, M.B.A. ’75
Atlanta
Errata
Dennis Grafflin, Ph.D. ’80, observes that the entomologist who inspired the name of Elisabeth Remy Johnson’s all-female chamber group (“Gathering Strings,” January-February, page 41) is Maria Sibylla Merian; we transposed the first two vowels in her middle name.
