Celebrated by Italian immigrants in the United States since 1792, Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937 to commemorate the “arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.” The explorer’s reputation has darkened in recent years as scholars have focused more attention on the killings and other atrocities he committed against Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. This year, amid a national reckoning on racial injustice, protesters have toppled and beheaded statues of Columbus in various cities, while pressure grows to abolish the national holiday and replace it with one that...

Hillary Clinton’s surprising loss in the 2016 presidential election was chalked up, in part, to a widely held belief that voters prefer male candidates generally, and that they are especially put off by women who appear too ambitious or aggressive.

Those concerns have been revisited by pundits, in workplaces, and across dinner tables with former Vice President Joe Biden’s choice of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on the Democratic ticket. Some critics have called the former California attorney general overly self-seeking. That buzz has only grown as Harris, a former...

Claudine Gay, the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), announced on Wednesday that FAS will form a task force comprised of faculty, students, and staff to examine the College’s visual culture and develop a framework in which to create more inclusive imagery across the campus.

“How and where we memorialize individuals, events, and moments in our institutional history through imagery and symbols should reflect our core institutional commitments to truth, knowledge, and critical thinking,” Gay said in a message...

Like countless state and local governments, the 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes across the U.S. are struggling to respond to the public health crisis caused by COVID-19 — and the resulting economic devastation. Despite the $11 billion in direct relief Congress earmarked for tribal governments last spring, the funds have been slow to reach Native Americans, and legal restrictions and other red tape have hindered tribes’ capacities to adequately respond to the pandemic.

During an online panel hosted by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, tribal...