THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 2, 2020
PAGE 6
EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
COLUMN
Riley Cannot Be Judge, Jury, and Defendant
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he Harvard University Police Department will be undergoing a review of its internal climate with the help of national policing experts Ronald L. Davis and Brenda J. Bond-Fortier. The review, which will be spearheaded by HUPD Chief Francis D. “Bud” Riley and University Executive Vice President Katie N. Lapp, comes as a response to The Crimson’s report on HUPD’s culture of sexism, racism, and alleged favoritism spanning two decades. The decision is by no means sufficient. It is also entirely unsurprising. Our institution has a long history of dodging responsibility behind obscure internal reviews and hiding behind administrative proceedings. From opposing third-party arbitration for sexual assault allegations to its controversial handling of the sexual misconduct claims against former Government Department Professor Jorge I. Dominguez, Harvard has repeatedly shown itself reluctant to accept fully external and transparent probes into its internal issues. That attitude, both during the Dominguez controversy and now, actively endangers its student body. When the deeply troubling allegations against HUPD first emerged, we voiced our opinion unequivocally: “Riley Must Go.” As we detailed then, there is a strong moral case for demanding Ri-
ley’s resignation. He either tolerated or actively facilitated the growth of a racist and sexist culture within his department. We also expressed the practical reasons for the necessity of his departure, given the possibility that students might grow reluctant to engage with a police department that fosters such a culture. We, like several student activist groups on campus, stand by that assessment, and by a completely unambiguous meaning of the word “must.” Instead, Riley will be overseeing the review committee tasked with dealing with the very issues that several sources link directly to him. The notion itself is, of course, borderline satirical. Riley has had 24 years to improve his department’s morale and deal with internal issues regarding discrimination and diversity. Doing as much is a core part of any leadership position. Instead, he presided over a period that saw as many anti-discrimination lawsuits directed against him personally as women promoted to leadership positions within the department. He has been specifically named as the origin of the HUPD’s toxic culture by several sources, including allegations that he sought to create an “old boys’ network” where personal connections to
him were excessively prized. Perhaps even more concerningly, three female employees filed affidavits detailing specific instances of sexist behavior allegedly perpetrated by Riley. His actions speak for themselves. Yet according to the email announcement of the internal review he will be spearheading, Riley remains committed to improving department morale. Given his allegedly central role in a litany of climate issues within the department itself, it seems that goal would be best served by his departure. Indeed, unless Riley can definitively show that recent reports do not offer an accurate picture of the department, his resignation is imperative. A response by HUPD and the University rooted in bureaucratic secrecy rather than accountability and transparency is not the solution; an internal review is by no means enough. Riley must go. This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
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A Case for Harvard’s Own: Elizabeth Warren By MICHAELG. MONTELLA
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he 2020 Democratic candidate must have the temperament and platform that motivates every Democrat — not to mention their independent father — out to the polls. That candidate is Elizabeth Warren — and not just because she is an emerita professor at Harvard Law School. Two overarching questions face Democrats right now. The first question asks, “Will Democrats win 2020 by appealing to the median voter, or will they win by mobilizing the Progressive flank?” And the second question asks, “Is Trump an aberration, or is he a symptom of the nation’s deeper ailments?” I am not the first to raise these questions — just go over to CGIS and you’ll hear them debated ad nauseum. But as Super Tuesday approaches and many Harvardians gear up to vote in Massachusetts or mail ballots home, people outside the political punditry must fiercely interrogate these questions themselves. After all, how we answer them matters for how we answer the bigger question of who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump in November. If Democrats believe that galvanizing the progressive vote will carry them to victory in 2020 and that Trump is symptomatic of deeper issues, then the logical conclusion is to nominate Bernie Sanders. Conversely, if Democrats believe that victory rests with the median voter and that Trump was an aberration, then the logical conclusion is to put forward Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, or Amy Klobuchar— who can appeal to middleof-the-road America. The answers to these two questions, however, are not so black and white. Looking at 2016 voting, for instance, it is noteworthy that 12 percent of Sanders’s primary voters ultimately voted for Trump, which should be a cautionary tale about nominating a candidate with lackluster progressive credentials. Still another 12 percent of Republican primary voters (particularly supporters of John Kasich and Marco Rubio) cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, indicating that
the median voter is not “dead” as many progressives decry. It would therefore be dangerous to put forward either a progressive who risks alienating the median voter or a moderate who can’t keep progressives in the fold. Let’s instead nominate a candidate positioned to straddle the intraparty rift; who promises to usher in big, structural change while not going so far as to abandon America’s core systems; who dreams big and fights hard; who refuses to hold her punches. Let’s nominate Senator Elizabeth Warren. When it comes to envisioning a more equitable America, Warren is unparalleled. Her dizzyingly comprehensive agenda, genuine sensitivity to issues of race, gender, and identity, and expansive interpretation of executive power qualify her as the best standard-bearer for the progressive cause, not Bernie. Unlike Sanders, Warren has spent the past 40 years studying the factors exacerbating inequality and degrading American mobility. Unlike Sanders, Warren has the record of creating a highly effective federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned $12.4 billion back to American households cheated by financial companies. And unlike Sanders, Warren has actually fulfilled her Senatorial duty and legislated — the primary sponsor on nine Senate bills, compared to Sanders’s three, and since 2013, a co-sponsor on 50 laws, compared to Sanders’s 17 over the same period. Warren is therefore the more qualified representative of the progressive cause, eager to pick up the fragmented pieces of the executive branch and better people’s lives through the subtle yet seismic push-and-pull of regulatory levers. Warren would also handily maintain moderate’s support. First, Warren’s establishment support — proxied by endorsements — is surpassed only by Biden and Bloomberg, according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis. And I would argue that merely analyzing Warren’s endorsements from the likes of Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Julian Castro, Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.),
and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) actually under-estimate her cache. After all, she was also a professor at Harvard Law School, where she taught current members of Congress, including Katie Porter (D-Calif.), and Kennedy, both of whom formally endorsed her, and she maintains strong ties to the Obama administration from her days building the CFPB and cleaning up after the Global Financial Crisis. Second, the mantelpieces for Warren’s campaign — anti-corruption, reviving the American Dream for all, education, and labor rights — are broadly popular among the American electorate, which will motivate Moderates to embrace her platform given their belief in victory through broad appeal. In turn, down-ballot Democrats will be able to ride Warren’s coattails with a laser-focus on not-so-sexy but oh-so-important policies. Finally, Warren elevates reform over revolution, channeling the legal and political traditions of Louis Brandeis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, and Lyndon B. Johnson to inform her plans for a more equitable and just America. These three figures are demigods in Democratic lore, and Warren gives Democrats the chance to revive some of that transformational glory. Up until this point, the electability conversation has focused too much on individual candidates and too little on party unity. So, before we cast the last ballot, let’s be straight with ourselves: Neither moderates nor progressives will win without each other, and neither moderates nor progressives can govern alone. There is only one candidate positioned to unify the party. That candidate is Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren is ready to roll up the sleeves of her Nina McLemore blazer and fight like the dickens. Her persistence, her intellect, and her fierceness is Trump’s worst nightmare. And it is the Democrats’ best shot. —Michael G. Montella ‘21 is a Government concentrator with an Economics secondary living in Eliot House.
Tiny Worlds of Untapped Potential
Daniel L. Leonard BRAVE NEW WORLDS
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hat’s the largest amount of money that you can think of? The biggest U.S. lottery jackpot of all time was $1.586 billion. The total net worth of the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, is estimated to be $116 billion (at the time of publishing). And in 2018, the Gross Domestic Product of the entire world was $85.910 trillion. With those figures in mind, I ask again: what’s the most money that you can imagine? There is an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, named 511 Davida, which is estimated to be worth $15.4 quintillion. That’s 15,400,000,000,000,000,000 dollars — in other words, just enough money to afford popcorn at your next trip to the movies. In fact, Davida is one of a few dozen asteroids in our solar system that are valued at over a quintillion dollars; hundreds more are valued in the trillion- and quadrillion-dollar range. Given those numbers, it should come as no surprise that, since the start of the century, numerous companies have emerged seeking to bring asteroid mining from science fiction to reality. There are two main ways to accomplish this feat. The first involves launching an unmanned spacecraft equipped with mining gear, which would collect a chunk of an asteroid and bring it back to Earth. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has proven that this is technically feasible; its Hayabusa mission brought asteroid dust samples back to Earth in 2010, while its Hayabusa 2 mission is expected to bring back larger samples later this year. The second method is more ambitious. As the research shows, we could hypothetically build a spacecraft that could capture a small asteroid and place it in orbit around the Earth or the Moon. Once it’s that close, we could collect the mineral resources with relative ease; with the right asteroids, this could allow trillions of dollars worth of material to be brought to Earth. If asteroid mining does take off as the next big industry — as some magazines have predicted — then this would certainly have its benefits; the most obvious is a potentially massive economic boost to us here on Earth. (Looking at the Dow, we could certainly use one right now.) If asteroid mining were carried out by a government agency like NASA, the unbelievably high profits could be used to support a host of beneficial causes, from funding welfare programs to supporting scientific research. If, on the other hand, asteroid mining was performed by private companies, the monetary benefits would certainly not be as widespread. Even so, this money would be a big boost to the global economy — and governments could still profit off of it through high corporate taxes. Of course, introducing a massive amount of precious metals into the global economy would steeply devalue those materials, so the overall profits of asteroid mining will probably be far lower than they appear on paper.
That’s 15,400,000,000,000,000,000 dollars — in other words, just enough money to afford popcorn at your next trip to the movies. But asteroid mining could also help lessen the destruction caused by current mining here on Earth. The Guardian reports that “Extraction and primary processing of metals and other minerals is responsible for 20% of health impacts from air pollution and 26% of global carbon emissions.” If we shift our attention from the Earth to the sky in order to satisfy our needs for certain minerals, we could avoid much of the environmental degradation caused by Earth-based mining today. Plus, if humans were to deplete Earth’s cheap mineral resources — which we are in the process of doing — mining asteroids may one day be viewed as a necessity. That being said, advocates of asteroid mining must be mindful of the ideology underpinning their movement. I found myself fascinated by Asterank’s interactive table of asteroids. The chart lays out the distance of the solar system’s asteroids from the Sun, the eccentricity of their orbits, and their velocity — so far, all things you might expect to see in an astronomy textbook. But the central two columns stick out like sore thumbs: “Value ($)” and “Est. Profit ($).” Viewing asteroids through the lens of “How profitable might they be?” can have dangerous implications. If we begin our exploration into space with a profit-oriented mindset, then the next few centuries of space travel will likely be dominated by that perspective; we’ll enter a period of space exploitation, not space exploration. And, if we don’t restrain that mindset, scientists warn that we could use up all the solar system’s essential resources in a matter of centuries. So, the prospect of asteroid mining offers a turning point for how humanity interacts with the natural universe. Will we allow ourselves to be ruled by greed, quickly gobbling up all the natural resources within reach of our spacecraft? Or will we use space travel as a tool to explore and appreciate our planet’s surroundings, taking only the resources that we truly need? The choice is ours — and it’s a choice that will affect humanity’s future for centuries. —Daniel L. Leonard ’21, a Crimson editorial editor, is a joint History of Science and Philosophy concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.
