Road Safety
I applaud Harvard Magazine for highlighting “Safe Streets” (March-April, page 24) and the need to improve urban road design, and share Max Krupnick’s concerns regarding pedestrian and cyclist deaths. There is another emerging factor in the landscape worth exploring further: the rising popularity of electric bikes (e-bikes), and the hazards to both kids and adults.
Trauma surgeons with the American College of Surgeons have documented a dramatic increase in the number and severity of e-bike accidents nationally, with an injury pattern more closely resembling motorcycle accidents than pedal bicycle accidents. A 49-fold increase in e-bike riders with head trauma has been witnessed nationally during the past five years. Inadequate helmet use, tandem riding, a higher rate of speed, and a lack of national regulations contribute.
A Saturday Night Live fiftieth anniversary skit featured Scarlett Johansson in a cast to highlight the problem of e-bikes colliding with New York City pedestrians. Perhaps the U.S. transportation secretary could convene a task force to study the problem and lead the way forward with national solutions? The use of the names “e-moped”
or “e-motorcycle” might also provide greater clarity to purchasers about the risks of these vehicles.
John Maa, M.D. ’94
San Francisco
The United States suffers more than 45,000 road deaths each year—a staggering, incomprehensible toll. In New York, after decades of bruising political battles, we are finally experiencing the benefits of congestion pricing (a toll for cars entering our crowded central business district). Early reports from the MTA show that this program is not only filling public transportation coffers but also making our streets safer. And yet, like so many policies that work to make our streets safer from cars, it remains under threat—this time from the Trump administration. Congestion pricing is but one arrow in the quiver for safer streets in cities across the country.
What makes this situation so tragic is that the solutions to road safety are clear: better street design, lower speed limits, restrictions on oversized vehicles, protected bike lanes, sidewalk equity. The list goes on. What’s lacking is political will. Walking and biking and micro-mobility are inherently safe activities made dangerous by the predominance of cars on our streets. The choice to improve road safety isn’t abstract—it’s about lives saved or lost.
Joseph C. Tedeschi ’90
New York City
I read your recent article about road safety for bicyclists. As a pedestrian, I am most afraid of cyclists. Since bike lanes were installed, there has been a dramatic increase in cyclists—including those riding motorized vehicles—on the sidewalks. Unless the weather is bad, every time I go for a walk I see and dodge multiple cyclists on the sidewalks (and also in Harvard Yard).
Almost all these sidewalk riders are college-age and, based on their expensive vehicles, are wealthy and obviously self-entitled enough to believe they now have the right to take over the sidewalks in addition to the streets. Apparently the sense of safety imparted by bike lanes has emboldened cyclists to ignore the law, Harvard policy, common courtesy, and pedestrian safety. If challenged, the sidewalk riders react with anger and justifications: “I’m careful”; “I can’t help it, they put the bike rack on the sidewalk”; “Get out of our way, we’re late!”; etc.
Usually challenging the sidewalk riders is pointless, because most are wearing headphones, which is is a distraction on top of general rudeness, rule-breaking, and endangering others. If a cyclist gets hit by a car, the car driver is blamed, and most people don’t seem to question the behavior of the cyclist.
Maybe Harvard should invest in research to learn how to control the behavior of cyclists—including Harvard students—so the sidewalks can be safer for pedestrians.
By the way, I used to commute by bicycle 14 miles daily, years before bike lanes. The only serious injury I ever got was my own fault and due to recklessness. I’ve also biked in European countries that have well-designed and safe bike lanes. The bike lanes here are not safe, are badly designed, and poorly implemented. There’s also the economic impact of small businesses failing due to lost parking. What do Harvard researchers say about that?
Nikki Jordan
Cambridge, Mass. Former Harvard employee
On July 15, 2023, Jeanie Diaz, a beloved children’s librarian, finished her workday at the public library around the corner from my house and crossed the street to wait for the bus that would take her home. But in the minutes before it could arrive, a motorist killed her. Her violent death traumatized and bereaved her two young children and her spouse, along with thousands of children and families who frequented the library, as well as her coworkers and friends. For decades, I’d crossed that intersection on bike or on foot multiple times each day, muttering about how drivers there and throughout our city keep getting more numerous, distracted, aggressive, and reckless. But Diaz’s death catalyzed me into [becoming] a safety advocate and activist, newly aware of the need to question the many ways we allow car culture to do so much harm.W hen the March-April 2025 issue of the magazine arrived, I eagerly turned to the cover story. Although some of the experts cited raise important points, overall the article was disappointing and even detrimental.
The safest roads are not, as the article claims, the fastest ones. The safest roads and neighborhoods are ones that have no motor vehicles. This safety is measured not only in terms of collisions, but also in terms of pollution (children’s books left at an impromptu memorial for Diaz were quickly coated by pollutants, indicative of what also coats children’s respiratory systems), impact on the climate, people’s ability to safely engage in healthier activities like bicycling and walking, and stronger bonds of community.
Rather than “encouraging the rideshare driver to go slowly,” we need to challenge the misleading euphemism “rideshare” and confront how this business model, along with those for mammoth online retailers, food delivery services, and similar ventures, make our streets and communities unsafe. They not only increase the number of vehicles on our streets; they also incentivize speed and reckless and distracted driving.In addition, ubiquitous illegal stopping by these vehicles to make deliveries or pick up passengers typically force bicyclists and motorists to swerve into oncoming traffic. These businesses should be regulated to end (or at least limit) their negative impact on public health, community well-being, and the climate.
Instead of further distracting drivers with flashing “SmartSigns,” jurisdictions should take more effective action, despite pressure from lobbyists and cries of inconvenience by individual drivers. Repeal bans on automated enforcement and increase its use. Eliminate “turn on red.” Change the timing of all traffic lights to prioritize human life and community livability over vehicle speed (it should never “take four light cycles” for a pedestrian to cross any street; that is a choice made by a public agency with no regard for human life). Incentivize and invest in public transit use across all socioeconomic classes. Increase registration and parking fees for larger, heavier, deadlier vehicles. Close streets to motor vehicle traffic, creating human-centered urban plazas instead.
The article never address the fundamental truth that traveling by SUV, pickup, minivan, or car does not make anyone safer: of those 40,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the U.S. annually, the majority are drivers or their passengers. But even if people mistakenly believe only pedestrians and bicyclists [to be] vulnerable to vehicular violence, every time we get into a private motor vehicle, whether as a driver or a passenger, we are actively choosing expedience and convenience over human life and safety. Emphasizing this fact is key to motivating individuals and communities to make more thoughtful choices. (The article mistakenly assumes bicyclists and pedestrians like me are “unable to upsize” in “an arms race.” In reality, I am uninterested in trading the joys and benefits of not driving for the misery, expense, and harm of driving everywhere.)
Vehicular violence exemplifies the harm that comes from falsely equating new technology with progress. Yet the article readily engages in this logical fallacy when discussing “autonomous vehicles.” Companies now dangle the unproven promise of eliminating human error to promote a detrimental business model that will increase traffic, accelerate the climate catastrophe, and potentially increase deadly collisions, perhaps in ways we have not yet encountered (just imagine when cyberattacks target AV software). Mark Fagan downplays all the dangers of this new technology by suggesting there have only been “one or two bad events” that shouldn’t “end the experiment”; but many of us do not join Fagan in celebrating the fact that “way back when” safety concerns did not impede an unending embrace of automobiles and aircraft. Perhaps if safety concerns were taken more seriously then and now, we wouldn’t have 40,000 people a year killed by vehicular violence, hundreds of thousands of others badly injured, along with the many lives lost because of unsafe aircraft production and increasing air traffic—not to mention an ever worsening climate catastrophe that is already beginning to cause horrific impacts for entire generations (including current Harvard students), as well as countless other species.
Sitting at the bus stop where Jeanie Diaz died, one can see two other nearby places where drivers previously killed people. Yet since Diaz’s death, the only changes at that intersection have made it more unsafe. Designing communities around the passage of motor vehicles endangers everyone. Harvard Magazine would do better to enlighten readers about how to redesign communities to eliminate private motor vehicles, looking to models like Barcelona. If dramatic redesign sounds expensive, consider the immense billions we spend on motor vehicle infrastructure and on the health and climate tolls of motor vehicle use, as well as the expense for individual households of purchasing, fueling, insuring, and maintaining each motor vehicle; then add in the value of lives like John Corcoran’s and Jeanie Diaz’s. What are we saving, and what are we failing to save?
Dr. Lois Leveen ’90
I read with interest Mr. Krupnick’s article in the March-April issue (“Safe Streets,” page 24). The coverage was comprehensive and balanced. In particular, I appreciated the emphasis on what is usually called a “safe systems” approach, whereby all aspects of the traffic safety countermeasure system—roadway engineering, traffic enforcement, education, vehicle design, post-crash care, etc.—are intended to reinforce each other comprehensively so as to move us toward zero traffic fatalities. One aspect of driver licensing that is perhaps underappreciated, however, is that, in the United States at least, such licensure is at this point essentially synonymous with individual identification. This is not necessarily true in other jurisdictions, where identification and the privilege to drive a motor vehicle are not so tightly linked. Because they are so linked here in the United States, this alters appreciably the implications of traffic enforcement more generally, with subsidiary implications for criminal (and/or civil) adjudication of traffic violations, administratively imposed license-based countermeasures (e.g., demerit “points,” warning letters, license suspension/revocation, fines, etc.), and vehicle-based countermeasures (e.g., impoundment, DUI-related special license plates).
Bayliss J. Camp, Ph.D. ‘03
Chief of Research, California Department of Motor Vehicles
Sacramento
It’s good to read that there is so much high-level brain power being devoted to making streets safer. The carnage that is plaguing our population from the misuse of our roads is troubling indeed. Max Krupnick eloquently describes the downward spiral we find ourselves in. Automotive engineering has created vehicles with performance we never would have imagined several decades ago. These high-performing cars allow all of us to feel confident and in control at speeds well above posted speed limits; in fact, the sophisticated engineering renders most of us unaware of how fast we are actually driving. These speeds, though, make driving more dangerous, and our response to the increased danger is to fortify ourselves in ever larger, less energy-efficient vehicles, as Krupnick so accurately describes.
But the solutions he writes about completely miss the point. It should not require a master’s in architecture graduate designing so-called “road diets” for a handful of locations to get a tiny minority of American drivers to slow down. Automated speed cameras are a much less expensive solution. They require no police presence to enforce and they generate a lot of revenue for the local government. It won’t take long for drivers in areas with these camera systems to realize that speeding is expensive, causing many of them to slow down. When enough governments catch on and start reaping the benefits, the tactic will snowball. Fewer injuries and deaths will lower healthcare costs, hence insurance costs will fall. Roads may even become safe enough that drivers begin to feel that they do not need to be driving behemoth vehicles to keep themselves out of danger. Lighter vehicles will mean less severe accidents and a pattern of increasing benefits will make life better for all. American policy makers just have to have the guts to get this approach going.
Benjamin M. Baker ‘72
Branford, Conn.
The article in the March-April 2025 issue, “Safe Streets: Working to Curb Road Deaths,” summarizes well the current state of discussions about urban road safety. Fatal traffic crashes continue to rise in many American cities. In Washington, D.C., for example, Mayor Muriel Bowser launched “Vision Zero” in 2015, with the goal of bringing traffic fatalities down to zero by 2024. Since then, the number of traffic fatalities in the District of Columbia has instead doubled, from 26 in 2015 to 52 in 2024. But your article failed to uncover the fundamental reason why traffic fatalities continue to rise. That reason is that we are flying blind—we don’t have enough systematic analysis of why traffic fatalities occur, so the solutions that are proposed are based mostly on speculation about what might be causing them.
At the federal level, we are not flying blind. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) thoroughly investigates crashes in all the commercial modes of transportation regulated by the federal government and produces carefully considered analyses of why the crash happened and what can be done to prevent similar crashes in the future. The NTSB’s recommendations significantly affect actions taken by federal regulatory agencies and by Congress, resulting in dramatic improvements in transportation safety. In the airline industry, for example, we had had (until last month) only one fatal domestic commercial passenger airline crash since 2009, with only a single fatality. Smaller reductions have occurred in other federally regulated transportation modes. Overall highway traffic fatality rates, calculated as the rate of fatalities per vehicle-mile travelled, have fallen by two-thirds since 1975, primarily because of new safety features built into cars.
There are far too many fatal highway crashes for the NTSB to investigate all fatal highway crashes, so the NTSB mostly leaves traffic safety to state highway safety authorities. In most states, responsibility for investigating the causes of highway crashes falls on state and local police. Police officers at the scene of a crash have multiple responsibilities—protecting the scene of the crash from other traffic and directing other traffic around the crash site, ensuring that those injured are provided with urgent medical care, investigating the causes of the crash (focusing primarily on whether any laws were broken), and clearing the damaged vehicles from the roadway to allow normal highway use to resume. There is extensive literature suggesting that police officers do a poor job of investigating the causes of crashes because they have so many other responsibilities at the scene of the crash.
For example, in Washington, D.C., the Howard University Transportation Research Center has prepared a series of traffic safety statistics reports for the District of Columbia, each covering the most recent three-year period. Each report includes a section on “contributing factors” in highway crashes, based on data from the Metropolitan Police Department. The most recent report, for 2018-2020, found that, in 2020, for 49 percent of the crashes, the contributing factor was listed as “unknown.” For another 29 percent, the contributing factor was “no violation.” For another 5 percent, the contributing factor was “other.” In other words, for 83 percent of the crashes, the police investigation found no identifiable contributing factor for the crash. In only 17 percent of the crashes were the police able to identify a contributing factor, including 1.1 percent involving speeding and 1.1 percent involving a red light or stop sign violation. Speeding is a more important factor in fatal collisions, but even for these fatal crashes only about 15 percent were speed-related.
In 2016, the D.C. Council established a Major Crash Review Task Force to review every major crash investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department and make recommendations to reduce the number of major crashes in the District. The Task Force’s first report in July 2019 provided both useful analysis of the 18 major crashes they reviewed and a number of worthwhile recommendations. But the 2019 report was the only report the Task Force has issued. Its subsequent work has been sabotaged by a lack of support from the city agencies responsible for traffic safety. Moreover, police policy prohibits dissemination of traffic crash investigative reports to anyone not directly involved in the crash, so it’s impossible for independent researchers to do the analytical work that the city refuses to do on its own.
The result is that, in D.C., as in most of the rest of the country, traffic safety policymaking is mostly guided by speculation. We know the locations where crashes have occurred, and we know the times at which they occurred, so we can focus enforcement resources at particular times and places. But most of the effort focuses on enforcement of prohibitions on speeding and running red lights and stop signs, even though the limited data available suggests that these factors cause only a minority of even the fatal traffic crashes. The limited data that is available suggests that most of these crashes resulted from drivers simply not paying attention to their driving.
We will not make progress on improving traffic safety in cities until we create local versions of the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate local crashes.
John V. Wells, ‘70
Former chief economist, U.S. Department of Transportation
Washington, D.C.
Speak Up, Please
Harvard Magazine welcomes letters on its contents. Please write to “Letters,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or send comments by email to yourturn@harvard.edu.
Criminal Justice
I read with some interest Lincoln Caplan’s excellent review of Rachel Barkow’s book Justice Abandoned exposing the Supreme Court’s role in mass incarceration (“Cruel and Unjust,” March-April, page 46). As I read, I looked forward to the parts telling what these inmates did to be incarcerated, giving some voice to their innocent victims, suggesting better ways than incarceration of punishing and deterring offenders and protecting the rest of us, or observing how stronger family and other traditional bonds in other countries might explain their lower crime rates. These weren’t in the article. Maybe they are in Barkow’s book itself.
Rauer Meyer, J.D. ’73
Tiburon, Calif.
Lincoln Caplan notes the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prisoners. He attributes this to “six decades of triumphant tough-on-crime politics.”
The National Criminal Victimization Survey suggests that each year the number of those imprisoned in the United States for the most common violent crimes (rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) equals about one-twentieth of the number of persons who are victims of such crimes (in 2019, approximately 2.1 million persons reported being victims of such offenses while approximately 108,000 persons entered state prisons convicted of them).
Is there over-punishment when the number of those entering prison for rape, robbery, or aggravated assault is one-twentieth the number of those raped, robbed, or assaulted?
Andrew Campbell ’74
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Lincoln Caplan responds: Like the letter writers, Professor Barkow views crime victims and their families as critical stakeholders in the criminal justice system. She has said that “the way we usually address their needs is to pass some symbolic legislation that actually doesn’t help them at all.” She favors increasing resources to help victims and their families restore their lives. As important, so that there will be fewer victims of crime, she favors enhancing public safety, which Justice Abandoned explains.
Harvard’s Financial (and Other) Risks
Nothing shows how comically out of touch Harvard is better than editor John Rosenberg’s 7 Ware Street column “At Risk” (March-April, page 4).
It begins: “Under the political circumstances prevailing in Washington D.C., universities like this one could find their financial foundations shaken—and at worst, shattered.” Newsflash: with an endowment over $50 billion, there are no other “universities like this one.” Using Harvard as the poster child of suffering universities is akin to using Warren Buffet as the poster child for the effects of Social Security reform.
The column notes that Harvard had to pay $52 million in taxes. But even Harvardians can calculate that’s but 0.1 percent of the endowment, meaning Uncle Sam took $1 for every $1,000 in the endowment. Given the general Harvard ethos that taxing the rich is a virtue, you’d think taxing the richest—Harvard—would be embraced, not cause for alarm. What hypocrisy.
The column also states universities are under attack because of “wide perceptions of antisemitism on many campuses.” Perceptions? Is gravity still just a theory? Imagine if the conditions some black students suffered in the 1950s during school integration were described as “perceived racism.” Whether it’s Jewish students being spat on, attacked, or barred from entering libraries—conduct, not speech, offenses—the examples around the country are sadly ubiquitous. Heck, Harvard recently settled two lawsuits claiming it fails to protect its Jewish students after a federal judge ruled he was “dubious” of Harvard’s claim that it allowed protests to continue in order to protect free speech rights. Instead, he ruled Harvard’s reaction was “at best, indecisive, vacillating, and at times internally contradictory.” [The settlements were reported at “Antisemitism Settlements,” March-April, page 20, summarizing a full online report.]
The commentary ultimately reflects what it claims to lament: “level-headed analysis [is] in short supply these days.”
William Choslovsky, J.D. ’94
Chicago
Editor’s note: Mr. Choslovsky makes two important errors. First, Harvard’s endowment per student is far below that of some peers, like Princeton—and since some of them operate less in the way of very expensive wet labs, they could be considered much richer, for academic purposes, than this University. Harvard isn’t poor, but several endowed peers are in a much more advantageous position to fund huge research undertakings and provide copious financial aid. Second, he conflates the value of the capital corpus with the flow of income from it; it is the latter that is available to pay for operations, and to which the excise tax applies.
The excellent “At Risk” column warns correctly that all private universities and colleges, but especially Harvard and other prominent schools, are likely to be under increasing attack in the next few years, with large endowments a particular focus of public anger and greed. I suggest a small but important tactic for fighting back. The size of any school’s endowment should always be accompanied by another number: the endowment’s current value per student enrolled. Harvard is a big university, but a large endowment looks a lot more modest in size when divided by the total number of its students.
Harvard, in describing itself and in defending itself against accusations of being “very rich,” should always present its endowment per student and emphasize that the income from this money is what allows Harvard to keep all students’ tuitions below the costs of their respective educations, and to give further financial aid to many students. While some critics, in Congress and elsewhere, are just out to make trouble, others will respect the data and perceive Harvard more favorably if offered values of this ratio as measures of such institutions’ economic circumstances.
Eric Wolman ’53, Ph.D. ’57
Washington, D.C.
Use the Endowment
Sometimes, the price to pay is too steep. That was the case for Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray who sold his soul for lasting beauty. And now, Harvard faces a similar choice. Will its efforts to strive for eternal youth and beauty through its endowment practices lead it to sell its soul to the increasingly repressive demands of its ultra-rich donors and federal government funder? Is keeping silent the right approach in the face of weaponized threats of taxation?
Rather than bowing to these pressures, we need Harvard to preserve its ability to speak up forcefully for academic freedoms and against injustices, to research the important issues irrespective of the variable preferences of the rich, and to promote a social vision that supports rather than demotes the disfavored and disenfranchised.
And if that means dipping to some extent into its endowment, so be it. What good is having a Harvard two centuries from now if it has failed in advancing academic freedom and humanist values? It’s not worth having fancy pretty buildings, or even a curriculum that exceeds all others in its breadth if, at its core, the University’s soul starts to resemble the picture of Dorian Gray.
And let’s not think that prospect is an impossibility. History has repeatedly shown the failure of universities in the face of repressive forces. We just need to think about how, last century across Europe, too many institutions of higher learning failed to act against rising fascism and bigotry. Or the shortcomings of America’s universities regarding slavery and racism here at home. And while, yes, it may not be fair to judge those of the past against the morals of today, it is definitely fair to judge our current leaders against the morals of what was just yesterday. Disturbingly, we seem to be regressing to an earlier time of greater repression and harshness.
Too many universities are sacrificing values for dollars in a way they never had to before. Harvard has the capacity and capital to resist. It has a multi-billion-dollar endowment that can be used for decades to help with salary, research, and other expenses. These additional disbursements would need to be managed prudentially by the Corporation and complemented by continued active fundraising. But external funding needs to be done in a manner that frees the University from pernicious and damaging outside forces and fully protects its ability to stand for what is right.
Why bother being a 400-year-old multi-billionaire if you’re going to bow to the moment’s fashionable club of cleverer-than-all businessmen? When we imagine a time 25 or so years in the future, will Harvard’s students be able to look back on these years and proudly say, “Our University stood on the right side of history”? That’s a question for today’s leadership. Use the endowment to ensure the answer is a resounding yes.
Philippe Benoit, J.D. ’84
Washington, D.C.
Settler Colonialism
I commend Harvard for adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism [Read a full report at harvardmag.com/antisemitism-lawsuit-settlement-25.] The IHRA [definition] is intended to help people understand when legitimate criticism of Israel—which it does not preclude despite false claims otherwise—devolves into calumny intended to defame and delegitimize the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. If Harvard is to stamp out antisemitism on its campuses, then it must not only adopt but also implement the IHRA [definition]. Harvard has an opportunity do just that in response to the letter of Leila Kawar ’98 in the March-April issue (page 6). Kawar states Israel has committed a “documented genocide in Gaza” alongside “its escalating decades-long crimes of apartheid.” She refers to “the horrific crimes being committed by the Israeli settler-colonialist regime.” According to the IHRA, examples of antisemitism include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Accusing Israel of committing apartheid and genocide, as Kawar has, falls squarely within the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Harvard should disclaim this letter if its adoption of the IHRA [definition] is to have meaning.
Benj Pollock, M.B.A. ’79
Seattle, Wash.
Editor’s note: The magazine is editorially independent of the University, and in that spirit published both the excerpt from Adam Kirsch’s book on the subject (January-February, page 47) and Kawar’s response to it.
In the January-February issue, as it does every issue, this magazine featured an excerpt from a new book by a Harvard author, the well-respected critic Adam Kirsch ’97. In her letter to the editor Leila Kawar ‘98 is appalled that the magazine would publish something that she happens to disagree with; at the very least the editors should have included a “disclaimer.” In a classic act of projection, she accuses Kirsch of attempting to “shut down…scholarship” by interrogating dominant ideas about settler colonialism. Ironically, her letter perfectly illustrates Kirsch’s thesis that settler colonialism has become an “ideology,” a concept whose proponents believe cannot be subject to critical inquiry—when such inquiry is, of course, a core purpose of the University.
Cecile E. Kuznitz ’89
New York City
I could not agree more with Leila Kawar’s letter titled “Settler Colonialism,” which was published in the March-April issue (page 6). To the qualified analysts whose work I am familiar with, settler colonialism is the correct label for the historical and current practices of the state of Israel in relation to the Palestinians. Settler colonialism means that the indigenous population of a (non-Western) country is (to be) replaced by the colonizing population; that is, the indigenous population is to be maximally removed (ethnically cleansed) from their own land to make room for the incoming colonizers. In fact, there are now somewhat over seven million Israeli Jews and somewhat over seven million Palestinians living in the land between the river and the sea. Of course, between the two populations, there actually exists a huge power imbalance, with Israel committing the “crimes of apartheid and illegal occupation” against the indigenous population over decades (see Kawar).
Since October 2023, almost 17 years into its illegal, disabling siege of occupied Gaza, and initially in response to the Palestinian attacks of October 7, Israel has been conducting an accelerated campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza; more recently, it has also ramped up its ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). These campaigns have the full backing (rhetorical, financial, military) of the Trump administration. Israel’s agenda of ethnic cleansing in Gaza was confirmed again by its blocking of all humanitarian aid into Gaza as of March 2, in addition to the blocking of electricity into Gaza as of March 9, reducing the availability of clean water to one-tenth of the residents. The clear message is that staying in Gaza is an inescapable death sentence.
A related topic is the significant phenomenon of student protests since at least last spring at U.S. universities, Harvard being one of them. Without pursuing that topic here, I will only note that in January 2025 Harvard officially adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism, which blurs the distinction between criticism of Jews or Judaism and criticism of the state of Israel. Harvard Magazine reported on Harvard’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in February. This position pertains to the University’s past and future response to “pro-Palestinian” student protesters who demonstrate their moral opposition to Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Elizabeth G. Burr, Ph.D. ’96
Saint Paul, Minn.
Leila Kawar’s letter decries Adam Kirsch’s questioning the concept and analytical methods of “de-colonial scholarship,” specifically as applied today to Israel. In so doing she attempts to support her argument by saying that the concept of settler colonialism is “now well-established in the scholarly literature.” Well, perhaps. But then the wheels start to come off.
Kawar makes it clear that her goal is not so much to defend scholarly analysis as to attempt to portray as a fact that Israel is a committer of (in her words) “horrific crimes.” She accepts that Israel is (again in her words) a “settler colonial regime” and goes on to declare it guilty of “documented genocide” in Gaza, and of decades-long apartheid.
She offers no foundation for these accusations—unsurprising, because there is none.
Israel’s antagonists have chosen to accuse Israel of “genocide,” which in the modern context relates to the experience of the Jews of Europe during World War II, knowing the emotional impact it will have. But the few who trouble to look beyond the signs and chants spewed by demonstrators will find that, because Israel cares about minimizing harm to civilians, the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths among Gazans is the lowest in any modern conflict. This is despite challenges never before faced by an army—a battlefield in a densely-populated urban setting and an enemy that deliberately places civilians in harm’s way.
As for “apartheid,” anyone who has walked on Israeli streets, shopped in the malls, used public transportation, read the highway signs, or followed the parliamentary debates will know how ludicrous this accusation is. I would refer the reader to Shraga Simmons’s book David & Goliath (p. 358) for a convenient citation of examples.
I must assume that Kawar has never visited Israel and that her accusations reflect uncritical ignorance. If she has, however, then something more sinister is afoot.
Richard Laub
Buffalo, N.Y.
I wish to respond to Leila Kawar’s lack of scholarship and bias. Whether born in Michigan or not, she is an example of a settler colonialist, as am I, living in Pennsylvania near a street named Lenape Ave. Israel may be an example, too, but at least the Zionists have an historical claim to their imperfect homeland.
Her claims of genocide and apartheid are patently biased; her claims to scholarship and documentation are questionable. I wonder why, for instance, Kawar does not focus on the kingdom of Jordan. In controlling the Palestinian Mandate after World War I, England awarded a great majority of that “Palestinian” land to the Hashemites, not the Palestinians. Where is her complaint? Furthermore, in controlling the West Bank until the 1967 war, the Jordanian Hashemites expelled most of the Jews—all of the Jews from Jerusalem, in fact—where is her attention to genocide and apartheid there? Then of course there is the expulsion of many thousands of Jews from Arab lands after 1948. No concern there either? Zionism and Israel appear to be uniquely worthy of blame.
Settler colonialism is certainly nuanced and complex, but presenting Adam Kirsch’s work on it was certainly warranted.
Susan Dyshel Sommovilla ’70
Elkins Park, Penn.
Caregiving, Continued
Thank you for the very informative article on the crisis in caregiving (“Caring for the Caregivers,” January-February, page 24) and for the many letters of response (March-April, page 2). I have read all with a strong sense of relevance. There is much to admire in the hard work and loyalty of the many different caregivers whose experience you described.
However, it is important that the many others who have taken a different path hear my story. Five years ago, my husband became concerned about his word retrieval. The following year we moved to a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). He was tested and diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) and soon dementia was added to the diagnosis. We lived independently in the CCRC and for two years we participated in the active life here. Then he started to wander. He would get up in the middle of the night, put on his clothes, and leave our apartment. I installed a door alarm which did not deter him. Eventually I could not leave him alone, a dire period of isolation for both.
It was now clear that our interests were opposed: continuation of the pattern in which we endured a painful isolation together versus my own wish to lead a less restricted life. It was a stark but unavoidable choice.
Finally, seven months ago, I placed him in the memory unit here. There is no communication between us although he “converses” but I have no idea what he is saying. He does not understand anything I say. We hold hands and look at photography and art books and family albums. It is very hard but I am grateful for his wonderful care.
This change has given me the opportunity to “have a life.” It is very important to me that my story will give those who take a path similar to mine the knowledge that they are not alone and that they have the support we all need.
Penelope Demos Lawrence ’60
Bedford, Mass.
Responding to Protests
Neil Rudenstine’s “The Unruly Academy” (March-April, page 28) reminds me how out of touch and tone deaf academia is. Rudenstine recalls his time as president when students occupied the administration building and Yard over “living wage” protests. He wondered, “What were our alternatives?” as he literally moved out, ceding the building to the protesters. He said calling the police to remove them was not an option in his mind.
I have a simple question: If instead of protesting for a living wage, what if the protesters were white supremacists advocating that the University adopt a KKK platform? Would he have let the protesters have their way same as he did over a living wage? If not, why not? What’s the principled distinction?
In both instances the students broke the law. They trespassed. They took over spaces. That’s not speech, that’s conduct. Illegal conduct.
Whatever the answer to my hypothetical should have been his answer to these protesters. The response should be viewpoint-neutral. Universities need adults to show up and run the show, meaning give a warning with clear direction, and then call in the police and discipline the students. Actions have consequences. It’s not complicated.
Jean DuBois
Des Moines, Iowa
As an alumna of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and of the 2001 Harvard living-wage sit-in, I am writing in response to your publication of an excerpt from Neil Rudenstine’s memoir, in which he offers his recollections of this event.
First, I would like to wish Rudenstine good health and happiness on the occasion of his 90th birthday—congratulations on this milestone!
Second, while I understand that his recollections after such a long career might be a little hazy, I would like to remind him that he did in fact know the members of the Student Living Wage Campaign, some of us by name. We met with him on multiple occasions in the years leading up to the sit-in. I think he would be happy to know that after college, we went on to do things I believe he would be proud of, becoming researchers, professors, economists, scientists, lawyers, journalists, filmmakers, writers, clergy, etc. Above all, we are all caring and committed members of our communities. While Rudenstine might not recognize us right away if he saw us now, I’m sure he’d recognize our dedication—to use the words he addressed to us at the time—to the “desire to find out what lies just beyond the ideas we have barely understood, beyond the discovery we have just made; [the] desire to marshal the evidence, tighten the argument, polish the stanza, design exactly the right experiment, and convert ideas into effective actions.”
Third, I’d like to suggest that Rudenstine is selling himself short in his recollections of the sit-in. When he says he did not call the police on us, he means he did not call the Cambridge police. We did not know what security forces would be called when we entered Massachusetts Hall that day, and we were extremely apprehensive about it. We knew as well as Rudenstine what had happened the last time Harvard students chose to occupy a campus building, and while we were fully prepared to accept the consequences of our actions, it was not a decision we made lightly.
To our great relief, it was the Harvard Police Department that Rudenstine called. The officers who showed up that day, and in the days that followed, were people who knew us, and whom we knew, and with whom we maintained a respectful relationship for the duration of the sit-in. Thanks to that decision, the entire Harvard community made an incredible leap forward over the course of those 21 days. Staff, professors, students, alumnae, and community members came together in ways they never had before; Harvard sat down at a negotiating table with its workers, acknowledged that subcontracted employees should have the same rights as directly contracted workers, and expanded the benefits and raised the wages of its lowest-paid staff. Harvard became a better place for everyone to live and work. If that’s not something to be proud happened under your tenure, I don’t know what is…
Finally, I would like to correct one misconception that seems to linger in Rudenstine’s mind. His article left me with the impression that he felt we were not interested in talking to him or listening to him, and I would like to assure him that this is entirely untrue. Our greatest wish, when we rolled out our sleeping bags on the floor of his office, was for him to stay and speak with us. And perhaps we would have left much sooner if he had.
Miranda Richmond Mouillot ’03
Paris, France
Unaffordable Housing
I agree with the criticisms of Jonathan Shaw’s “Home Unaffordable Home” (November-December 2024, page 21), and of Professor Ed Glaeser’s approach to the housing crisis. I’d like to add one more criticism. While there are places where increased density should be encouraged, Glaeser’s focus on Manhattan is misplaced. Manhattan is already the densest county in the United States. Increased density will make Manhattan less livable, and beyond a certain point will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Moreover, removing density restrictions in Manhattan will not make housing meaningfully more affordable. Late in her tenure, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s planning commissioner, Amanda Burden, told an audience, “I had believed that if we kept building...and increasing our housing supply...that prices would go down. We had, every year, almost 30,000 permits for housing, and we built a tremendous amount of housing, including affordable housing....And the price of housing didn’t go down at all.” And even supply-side advocate and former Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Vicki Been admitted that “the price effects of market-rate construction may be slow to materialize and are unlikely to be sufficient to address the needs of very low income households.” As Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has written, this is largely because land, particularly in cities like New York, has become an investment good, its prices untethered from its use value.
John R. Low-Beer, Ph.D. ’74
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Campus Protests and Beyond
Putting the headline “Antisemitism Settlements” below a picture of the Harvard encampment (March-April 2025, page 20) is an insult to the students—many of them Jewish—who were protesting U.S. complicity in what Amnesty International (among many other human rights groups) has termed to be a genocidal war in Gaza. As someone who is old enough to have participated in both the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War, I have been heartened to see that some Harvard students still care deeply about justice and human rights, which have been entirely denied to Palestinians for many decades thanks to the uncritical support given to Israel by the United States.
Yes, Harvard’s adoption of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism is “unusual” for universities, as your piece puts it. It is also a blow to what I, for one, thought universities are supposed to be about.
To quote a Feb. 6, 2024 letter from the national ACLU to the secretary of education urging the Department of Education not to adopt the IHRA definition, which includes examples conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel and its policies:“This definition of antisemitism conflates protected political speech with unprotected discrimination, and enshrining it into regulation will chill the exercise of First Amendment rights and risk undermining the agency’s legitimate and important efforts to combat discrimination.” The letter continues: “The principles of academic freedom require higher education institutions to safeguard protected speech and political debate in order to help students pursue knowledge.…Adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism would lead to more censorship on campus, and change the nature of universities, which exist to promote the free flow of information and marketplace of ideas.”
It is regrettable that Harvard has embraced what is widely seen as a “new McCarthyism” on campus.
Nancy Uhlar Murray ’67
Cambridge, Mass.
Editor’s note: The headline referred to the settlement of legal cases against Harvard alleging antisemitism, not to the photograph of the pro-Palestinian encampment in the Yard. Some of the issues the correspondent raises are reported on in detail in the underlying news post, referred to in the print summary, at harvardmag.com/antisemitism-lawsuit-settlement-25.
Harvard’s Response to the Trump Administration
Editor’s note: These are some of the letters received by Harvard Magazine following the March 31 announcement that the federal government would “review” contracts and grants to the University and affiliates, as part of the work of its task force on antisemitism; President Alan M. Garber’s initial response (emailed to the community, including alumni); and subsequent developments. These events were reported online on March 31 in “Trump Administration Aims at Harvard Funding” and on April 4 in “The Government Details Its Demands”. For the government’s broad, detailed demands and President Garber’s declaration that Harvard could not comply, see “Harvard Resists Government Demands,” April 14, 2025.
In the face of Trump’s efforts to intimidate higher education, Harvard must resist Trump.
Just as important as resisting Trump, Harvard must be seen to resist Trump. Rather than cowering in fear, Harvard must set the example for others. Trump’s strategy is to divide and conquer: attack institutions one by one and cow them into submission. Fear is contagious, but courage is also contagious.
So what if Trump succeeds in hurting Harvard? Some fights are existential, and this is one of them. I would rather see Harvard reduced to a single tutor teaching a single student under a tree than [become] a large and rich institution frightened into abandoning its principles and its motto—which was Veritas, the last time I checked.
Timothy Hanke ’80
Newburyport, Mass.
We recognize the profoundly unsettling times that we are living through right now. We are confronting threats to the fabric of our society and the foundations of our democracy. Expertise, truth, facts, scientific inquiry, and liberty itself—academic, civil, and bodily—all are under attack.
But as you may remember from experiences as children on the schoolyard playground: giving into bullies never goes well. Bullies rely on intimidation to “divide and conquer.” History confirms this. Capitulation to bullies breeds only more threats, more demands, more tyranny.
There is no such thing as genuine negotiation with the current presidential administration. Our strength is in standing together and refusing to give in to fear.
Or as we teach children: be an “upstander,” not a bystander.
The April 6 New York Times op-ed, “A Playbook for Standing Up to President Trump,” reminds us of the power of banding together against bullying. I hope Harvard will choose to band together with like-minded universities. I hope legal firms will band together; I hope corporations will band together; I hope We the People will band together.
If Harvard cannot make allegiance with other universities to stand against these assaults to our most fundamental values, who can?
If Harvard cannot rise to this occasion, who can?
Choose to be upstanders—for all of us.
Deborah Weinstock-Savoy ’77
Gloucester, Mass.
I am a Jewish Harvard Business School grad, a former U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer, and a “recovering Republican,” and I’ve got to tell you that the major problem with Harvard isn’t antisemitism. Sure, there have been a few antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israeli yahoos who, when they went beyond their First Amendment-protected ugly speech into breaking the rules or the law, should have been appropriately hammered. But the bigger issue is the proto-fascistic/authoritarian and ignoring of the Constitution and the law Trump administration dividing and conquering and cowing private universities like Harvard and other institutions (like the recently-cowed major law firms), while using antisemitism as an excuse in Harvard’s case. I say fight these SOBs in the courts and the court of public opinion and use our big-enough endowment to buffer the financial pain in the interim. Take the moral and legal high ground!
Grow a backbone and be a leader, President Garber!
Reed M. Benet, M.B.A. ’91
Jacksonville, N.C.
As a Jewish American and alumnus of Harvard, I’m deeply disappointed in your response to President Trump’s threats to the Harvard community. You must change direction and truly defend academic freedom. “Working with” a federal administration that nakedly threatens to break contracts with Harvard, squelches free speech and open debate on campus, and threatens Harvard’s contributions to the public interest is an abdication of Harvard’s responsibility to build a community dedicated to finding the truth. It is obvious from Trump’s one-sided complaint, grossly exaggerated scale of damages (how is $9 billion connected to antisemitism?), and willingness to use public health as leverage that his goal here is not to protect Jewish students on campus. Instead, his transparent aim is to restrict what Harvard students and faculty can say and study to match his preferences and biases.
If Harvard agrees to this, what is to stop this U.S. president (or the next one) from making more demands and enacting even more outrageous punishments? If you ask alumni and the Harvard community to join you in defending academic freedom from its clearest threat in decades (or even centuries), we would stand with you. And then other universities large and small would stand with us. Please be a leader and stand up for Veritas.
Raphael Sperry ’95
San Francisco, Ca.
The president of Harvard sent an email to me and I presume to all graduates. That letter is profoundly unacceptable. It talks about [how] Harvard is not perfect and [how] Harvard has made and continues to make wonderfully helpful contributions to the world, and [how] antisemitism is on the rise in many areas outside of Harvard. Those points are true and irrelevant. Further I do not require or expect Harvard to fight bigotry of any sort. That is like fighting stupidity.
What I do expect is that Harvard counters violent and physical intimidation against anybody with powerful force and severe penalties. His email did not show me that Harvard is addressing that issue adequately. Rather his language is laced with diplomatic pieties like: “We resolve to take the measures that will move Harvard and its vital mission forward while protecting our community and its academic freedom.”
The issue is not “academic freedom.” The issue is strong law-and-order measures.
Charles Block, A.M. ’51
Miami, Fla.
The excellent article “The Faculty’s Fears” (online on April 3) was critical to reminding us of Harvard’s purpose as many of us should I hope believe it to be.
When I read President Garber’s March 31 community message, my reaction was identical to the following passage in that report:
Elaborating on Hoekstra’s reference to creationism, this faculty member laid out hypothetical scenarios in which a few on-campus creationists attracted attention in the press and in Congress, so that over time, the public came to believe Harvard was saturated with creationist belief. That is essentially the case with current accusations that the University community is saturated with, and poisoned by, antisemitism—a case which is neither true nor remotely how the community knows itself, she maintained. The assault on this (and by implication, perhaps, other universities) on the grounds that they are antisemitic or unprotective of Jewish community members is “unanchored from the truth.” Rather than accepting the government’s accusation and detailing what Harvard is doing to combat antisemitism, she said, the University must say to the public, “This isn’t what Harvard is.” Rather than give in to government demands, she said, “Why accept untrue, painful descriptions of who we are?”
There is a clear failure in our universities, institutions, and government when we ignore and dismiss the many Jewish leaders, scholars, students, and politicians who do not accept Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the narrative that criticism of Israel’s presently dominant political conduct and ideology is antisemitism. No one seems to address the antisemitism in this practice of denial, dismissal, and exclusion of these Jews, which opens all Jewish people up to the antisemitism that seems quintessential in Jewish history.
I have found CUNY faculty member Peter Beinart to be the most effective speaker on the challenges that universities, faculty, and students face regarding antisemitism and today’s authoritarian regimes and politics. Though his perspective doesn’t solve the financial challenges and crisis that universities are dealt, he explains the academic and moral price they are paying to preserve funding from those who maliciously or politically interfere with our institutions.
The faculty and students, like those who are showing up to rallies and protests across the nation and around the world criticizing the Trump administration and other authoritarians, are apparently our only leaders. They are willing to stand up to these authoritarian bullies, who are unquestionably the real threats of antisemitism. In essence, if the protesters don’t succeed, antisemitism will be redefined to the threat of any Jew that doesn’t support the authoritarian in power.
Harvard has far more to lose if Trumpism and Netanyahuism win than if it has to give up federal funding to preserve University research, as painful as that might be. Given that the losses in the stock markets could have—as taxes instead of losses—paid off the national debt without killing the economy, many are not using common sense to accept a present loss upfront rather than pay forever in the future.
David Souers, M. Arch. ‘82
Friendship, Me.
I hope you will give full coverage in your next issue to the Trump administration’s attack on the universities. Using the cover of combatting antisemitism (who could object to that?), Trump then defines any sympathy for the Palestinians as “antisemitism.” And that opens the door to an attack on left-wing speech the like of which we have not seen since the days of Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. And it is the height of hypocrisy, since at the same time Elon Musk and JD Vance are arguing for no restraints whatsoever on right-wing speech, including bordeline neo-Nazis, here and in Europe.
Alan Williamson, Ph.D. ‘69
Berkeley, Ca.
Dear President Garber,
One wonders what it is that you seek to preside over. Having Harvard, in the name of combatting antisemitism, follow the pattern of the German establishment when it kowtowed to Hitler instead of standing up to his encroaching totalitarianism?
You know perfectly well that the Trump administration’s use of threats to federal funding of universities is not motivated by a sincere concern about antisemitism. You watched the specious questioning (based on any number of false premises) of your predecessor in a right-wing hit job of a congressional hearing. You know that the current U.S. president is attacking his perceived enemies, airing his ideological and personal grievances, and attempting to stifle any debate about the U.S. policy of unqualified rubber-stamping of any decision by the Israeli military.
I am not denying that opposition to Israeli policy by some activists can spill over into anti-Jewish statements or actions. By the same token, opposition to Palestinian statehood or a just settlement of the competing claims over Israel/Palestine frequently spills over into identifying Israeli actions with the fundamental tenets of Judaism and into anti-Arab hysteria. All these forms of conflation must be condemned, while at the same time fundamental civil rights must be protected.
Your statement that tries to placate—and thus legitimizes—the forces of reaction and totalitarianism unfortunately does not surprise me. It’s in a long Harvard tradition of preserving its ties to power and its endowment at all costs. Why not dip into that endowment to “fight the power” and protect necessary research instead?
I should not need to say this, but I am a Jewish American bar mitzvahed in 1960. My Torah portion was Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream. My Haftorah portion was Solomon’s solution [to] the problem of the contested baby. Where is your equivalent wisdom in these desperate times?
Richard Cluster ‘68
Veritas in an AI Era
Articles in Harvard Magazine in recent years dealing with our increasingly computer-manipulated society prompt me to write the following:
Virtual reality. Artificial intelligence. Dare I ask what’s next?
For Harvard’s benefit and for the benefit of all mankind, I hope it is not Simulated Truth.
Gary Pildner ’60
Rocky River, Ohio
Too Wordy
Harvard Magazine is too “wordy” (verbose or prolix, if you like). Here are some cures:
1. Terminate the use of grantor identity when referring to a person holding an endowed chair. It makes for excess verbiage and an annoying interruption of the case in point. We do not need to know that Professor X is the Kleindorf-Hickenlooper professor of medicine. Professor of medicine suffices, or even professor.
2. Avoid distinctions between assistant, associate, or whatever level there may be below full professor. Adopt the Navy rule: anyone in command of a vessel above a certain grade is the captain, regardless of actual rank.
3. Avoid unnecessary or undistinguishing adjectives, as with “X, the Dean of FAS, turned to her decanal duties.” What other duties could the dean be turning to? If her additional position as a professor were identified, then she could returning to one or the other.
John Gould ’61
Lake Oswego, Oregon
Editor’s note: We do shorten professorships, reducing the John Gould Professor of XYZ to Gould professor; but within an academic community it is important to note that someone has attained a full, endowed professorship, rather than being an assistant or associate professor (which is not a tenured position)—a measure of academic achievement and distinction identified by peers and the institution we cover—so we will stick with our house style. This recognizes the professor’s attainment, not donors, to whom the magazine is under no obligation. We plead guilty to deploying unnecessary adjectives.
Booker White
Thank you for including my biography of blues musician Booker “Bukka” White in Off the Shelf. I devote a chapter in the book to Booker’s visit to Cambridge and Boston in April 1964. In town for three performances at the Huntington Avenue YMCA, he spent much of his time in Cambridge, where a group of blues enthusiasts interviewed him at length in Adams House. Junior Fellow Bruce Jackson owned a tape recorder for field research that he let the group use, and the resulting 11 hours of recorded music, conversation, and interviews are now in the Library of Congress. One enthusiast was David Evans ‘65, now a preeminent scholar of country blues and general editor of the American Made Music Series in which the book appears.
David W. Johnson ‘68
Stratham, N.H.
