Harvard University today sued its insurance broker, which it says is to blame for the failure to notify one of its legal insurers in time to get reimbursed for all the legal help it needed in a nine-year, ultimately unsuccessful, effort to fend off a lawsuit - and still ongoing federal investigation - involving its affirmative-action policies for student admissions. Read more.
Ari Ofsevit caught the sunrise over Harvard Stadium this morning.
In West Roxbury, Mary Ellen watched the dawn break over the old West Roxbury High School: Read more.
Little Amal surrounded by lanterns on Harvard campus. Photo by Sasha Patkin.
Why do people throw their energy into art when there are so many real and terrible things happening in the world that also deserve attention? This was one of the many questions which flitted across my mind as I sat on a bench in Harvard's Science Center Plaza Thursday night. Read more.
Harvard's officially inaugurating its new president in a couple of weeks, and so, the Crimson reports: Harvard to Pause Visits From Heads of State Ahead of President Gay’s Inauguration.
For the second time in nine months, a federal court has ruled that Harvard is out the $15 million it sought from a legal insurer because it missed the deadline for notifying the company it would invoke the policy for excess bills related to its decade-long, and ultimately unsuccessful, court battle against a group that didn't like its affirmative-action policies. Read more.
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.
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