Opinion

Subject to the lore of the cruel hazing rituals of its secret societies, and the backdrop for dozens of movies about the seedy underbelly of Ivy life, Harvard University is no stranger to controversy. But what local activists have noticed in the past few years is a more systemic and dangerous issue: the militarization of Harvard’s campus, and its tendency to arrest anyone who dissents from their version of veritas.

Three recent incidents expose the extent to which Harvard will go to protect its reputation, though these are not the first, or only, examples:

The energy transition. The words roll off the tongue, but what does it really mean ? Is it possible to move towards an economy based on renewable energy and to cool down global warming ?

The prospects for a new energy economy are growing, but old patterns of thought and practice around the energy industry are hindering this growth. Investment in solar and wind has gone way up in the last 5 years. It doesn't seem too long ago that these were seen as "boutique" energy provisions, nothing that would really get funded.

“We substitute teachers like to think of ourselves as the marines of the public education system. Whenever a breach opens in our nation’s educational front lines, off we go: The few, the brave, the stupid.” -- From Tom Gallagher's SUB 

Many of Boston’s biggest and most profitable developments enjoy decades-long property tax exemptions under a state law, Chapter 121A, created in 1945 to subsidize affordable housing in distressed areas.  

Chapter 121A was amended in 1960 to apply also to commercial and luxury housing projects on sites the Boston Redevelopment Authority declares “blighted.”  Only about three dozen large projects have received 121A tax agreements, but they have – and will continue to - cost us hundreds of millions of dollars.