Local civil-rights groups said tonight that the federal Department of Education has agreed to investigate their claim that Harvard's continued preference for "legacy" admissions of primarily white applicants violates the rights of Hispanic and Black applicants whose parents or other relatives didn't go to the school or donate large amounts of money to it. Read more.
The families of three Massachusetts residents who willed their bodies to Harvard Medical School yesterday sued Harvard over what might have happened to those bodies under the care of a school mortuary director now facing federal charges of selling off various body parts to a ring of creepy collectors. Read more.
The Harvard Crimson reports on today's ruling, which focused in part on admissions at Harvard.
The Harvard Art Museums announced today they've ended admission fees for the general public, even if they don't live in Cambridge (Cantabrigians already had free access). Read more.
The Crimson reports Tishman Speyer is set to break ground this week on the Harvard Enterprise Research Campus off Western Avenue after the company landed a $750-million financing package, which it claims is the largest such deal in the US this year. Harvard currently owns about a third of Allston, with much of its newest holdings secretly acquired in the late 1980s.
In addition to the newly revealed unpleasantries at Harvard Medical School, Harvard's Houghton Library has a 19th-century French book bound in human skin - Des destinées de l'ame (Destinies of the Soul). Read more.
FBI says image shows Giordani about to deliver package that shut part of Harvard last month.
A man who claims he was only answering a Craigslist ad from somebody seeking to arrange delivery of a package to his son at Harvard was arrested today on federal charges of aiding and abetting an extortion attempt and conspiracy for an incident that shut down part of the Harvard campus last month after police discovered a bag containing a box full of Roman candles, bottle rockets and wires, following a series of threatening extortion phone calls that day. Read more.
Harvard is following BC's lead and banning students from riding or even just storing scooters and bikes inside its buildings and warning them to de-bike on certain hallowed ground, such as Harvard Yard. The Crimson interviews one of its own sports editors, who is simply aghast, and another student who had her scooter stolen when she was forced to leave it, unlocked, outside.
The Harvard Crimson reports on a swatting attack that involved four black students being awoken by campus police in riot gear pointing rifles at them and ordering them to raise their hands and walk out of their rooms.
The false report was an apparent example of “swatting” — the act of placing a false emergency call with the intention of harassing a target by provoking a forceful police response.
Rendering by Architectural Resources Cambridge of Boston.
Harvard University yesterday filed plans with the BPDA to build a new home for the American Repertory Theatre at 175 North Harvard St. that would include two theaters able to hold up to 1,000 people as well as a 14-story, 264-unit apartment building that would be topped with "a beacon effect" as an homage to Allston. Read more.
Fretful that Harvardians are not fighting fiercely enough because they have no mascot, only a color, the school's undergraduate government is looking at creating an official mascot for the school in the form of a turkey - and it's allocated $1,000 to buy a large turkey outfit to test out the idea at The Game this weekend, where Yale fans will no doubt give the idea the respect it deserves. Read more.
They could make this a class at Harvard Law: If you sue your insurer for not covering a claim, make sure you file that claim within the time set by your policy. Read more.
The Crimson reports the university at some point will ask the BPDA for permission to build a new home for the theater - and new housing for grad students - at 175 North Harvard St in Allston, next to Harvard Stadium.
The Crimson reports on problems electing a student government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
The Harvard Crimson reports that Bill De Blasio, who went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin before becoming the second straight New York mayor from the Boston area, will be a "visiting fellow" at the Harvard Institute of Politics this fall.
The BPDA board is scheduled to vote Thursday on the first phase of Harvard's proposed Enterprise Research Campus off Western Avenue that would include setting aside 25% of the 345 planned residences as affordable - almost twice what the city requires - and contributing $25 million to a new fund for increasing the affordable housing stock in Allston/Brighton. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a woman who sued Harvard University both to gain possession of four daguerreotypes of two of her ancestors ordered stripped half naked in 1850 by professor Louis Agassiz, whose contributions to geology were matched by the depths of his racism, has no right to the images, but that she does have the right to try to convince a jury that Harvard committed "negligent and indeed reckless infliction of emotional distress" by continuing to use the images for its own purposes even after she objected. Read more.
The Harvard Gazette reports a global shortage of helium, caused in large part by sanctions on Russia, which ships much of the world's supply, is beginning to affect research in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and medical research, all of which use the gas to cool things down to temperatures way, way below freezing. Read more.
In a new report out today, Harvard University acknowledges a history that included being run by slaveholders right from the start: Read more.
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