News

Boston Globe journalists discuss series on race in Harvard forum

April 18, 2018

Is Boston racist? That’s the simplest version of the question discussed Monday at the Kennedy School by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a professor of history, race, and public policy, and a group of Boston Globe spotlight team journalists whose December series examining race in Boston was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting.

But as the Globe team quickly noted, the report sought to reveal the complex reality behind that question — and the challenges that lie ahead.

The series of seven articles, gathered...

Scholars highlight dangers, drivers of inequality in Harvard forum

April 17, 2018

For a growing segment of the world’s population, economic inequality has become deadly. That was the message of Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton and University College London epidemiologist Michael Marmot at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health colloquium “Nations at Risk: The Changing Distributions of Population Health” on Friday.

Following introductory remarks by Harvard Chan School Dean Michelle Williams, the first hour of discussion outlined the extent of the...

Harvard reports progress on faculty diversity

April 13, 2018

Harvard University continues to make progress in its commitment to diversifying its faculty, according to the annual report from the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity. Harvard’s faculty is more diverse than ever, with women making up 30 percent of tenured and tenure-track faculty and minorities making up 23 percent. Of the 84 tenured and tenure track-professors who joined Harvard this year, 42 percent are women and 36 percent are minorities.

“Increasing the diversity of the Harvard faculty is front and center...

Annual Radcliffe conference probes citizenship and gender in the 21st century

April 12, 2018

Citizenship brings a range of rights and responsibilities in countries all over the world. But in many nations, according to Radcliffe Dean Lizabeth Cohen, “the link between gender and rights is hardly a settled issue.”

Cohen’s remarks opened “Who Belongs: Global Citizenship and Gender in the 21st Century” on April 6. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s annual gender conference touched on topics ranging from the hijab to the history of citizenship in...

Nation's Report Card Shows Widening Gaps

April 10, 2018

The release of the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and mathematics shows widening gaps between the highest and lowest achieving students in America, underscoring a continuing need for investment in efforts to make education systems more equitable. Compared to 2015 results, 2017 scores in reading and mathematics were higher for eighth-grade students who performed in the 75th and 90th percentiles of test takers, and they were lower for fourth-... Read more about Nation's Report Card Shows Widening Gaps

Civil Rights progress isn’t just about major breakthroughs, Danielle Allen says

April 9, 2018

“I want to make a case for the small,” said Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, for “the things that build a life of commitment.”

Giving the keynote address for the Hutchins Center Symposium on Martin Luther King Jr. at the Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, Allen began by noting that although the Civil Rights leader “painted on a canvas that feels big,” she and many of her colleagues find themselves advocating smaller-scale activism — and worrying that they are not making a difference.

Frequently...

Angela Davis speaks on immigration at Harvard

April 2, 2018

Famed political activist and scholar Angela Davis took the stage at the Harvard Art Museums’ Menschel Hall on Thursday to share her views about immigrants’ rights. And she didn’t hold back.

“I believe that the major civil rights issue of the 21st century is the issue of immigrant rights,” said Davis, distinguished professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Not only in Europe or the United States, but everywhere — from South America to Africa and Australia.”

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Askwith Essentials: Charter Schools and Educational Equity

March 27, 2018

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This event will be live-streamed beginning March 29 at 5:30 p.m.

Associate Professor Martin West will moderate a discussion among guest...

Harvard issues task force report on inclusion, belonging

March 27, 2018

Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging issued its final report today, a compilation of eight recommendations and a framework of “four goals and four tools” meant to serve as a blueprint for advancing Harvard’s practices and culture of inclusion and belonging. In response, Harvard President Drew Faust announced a series of initiatives to advance this work, including development of an innovation fund, resources...

Harvard professor reflects on the Kerner Report, 50 years on

March 21, 2018

In the summer of 1967, racial strife broke out in Newark, N.J., and Detroit, quickly followed by civil disturbances in more than 100 U.S. cities. To understand the roots of the unrest that caused havoc across the country, President Lyndon Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner. A year later, the Kerner Commission issued a blistering report concluding that structural racism was at the root of the riots, and that America’s improved future depended on solving...

INEQUALITY IN AMERICA