Students with disabilities were already on unequal footing before COVID-19. Now, the pandemic is putting their civil rights at risk. The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill grants Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the authority to ask Congress to waive key protections for special education students afforded by the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), the federal education […]

As countries across the world struggle to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Iran’s battle with the virus has been compounded by the lack of access to adequate medical supplies imposed by the U.S. government’s crippling sanctions on the country. Iran is amongst the countries most impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19. As of […]

Celebrating individual merit is a core feature at the Kennedy School. We have fellowships, while other schools have need-based financial aid. We split our buildings into parts and name them after elite benefactors. This pandemic calls on us to put that spirit of meritocratic competition aside. Unless necessary to fulfill a specific requirement for a […]

The history of Italian cuisine spans centuries and cultures: from Greek to Roman, Byzantine to Jewish, past to present. This diversity is reflected in the richness of the regional Italian cuisines, which are handed down from generation to generation. The foundation of Italian cuisine is the use of fresh, high quality products. In fact, many […]

Renowned sociologist Dana R. Fisher studies political movements for a living. She has analyzed and surveyed protesters in every major modern U.S. movement, including the 2017 Women’s March, and the 2017 March for Science. In her latest book, American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave, Dr. Fisher explores the 2016 election cycle […]

In 2016, I was working at a UNHCR clinic in a refugee camp in South Beirut, Lebanon as a medical assistant. I remember throwing out suitcases full of donated medications, which were all outdated, or otherwise uselessbecause they were not addressing the health problems that we were seeing in the population. What good is a […]

A former Minister of State, a well-recognized journalist, and a political scientist with a large Twitter following walk into a bar. They’ve just finished speaking at the Harvard India Conference and now sip whiskey and laugh boisterously at the Charles Hotel. The student organisers who invited them to discuss India’s pressing public issues have raised […]

While international students are chasing their dreams at colleges across the nation, visa requirements are forcing their spouses to put theirs on hold. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. At a bustling café in Cambridge, a group is sipping coffee, sharing cakes – and discussing strategies to stay busy. They’re not retirees (their […]

Every year, we throw away about one-third of the world’s food. This is the equivalent of USD 936 billion, more than the Netherlands’ entire GDP.1 Most of this food is dumped in landfills where it decomposes and produces greenhouse gases (GHG). In 2010, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that about 3 percent […]

Original Cartoon by Drew Madson. See more of his illustrations here. Instagram @drew1drew2drewyou   The irony underlying the Kennedy School’s core pursuit is evident in its very name stone. The light brown, etched marble stone, proudly boasts Harvard Kennedy School as the headline. But below that is a subtle, almost invisible, outcasted subtext, conceding it as the “John […]

Over the past three weeks, as I’ve become intimately familiar with the lovely yet lonely four walls of my Cambridge bedroom, I’ve been mourning the sudden loss of what was the most transformative part of my HKS experience: you.  I think what I miss the most is the casual run-ins. I’ve missed catching up in […]

The pandemic is revealing the severe inequities caused by our nation’s digital divide. It is crucial that we invest now to address them. Long before COVID-19 shut down physical campuses and banned in-person gatherings, my life as a graduate student relied heavily on the internet. Due to swift action taken by my school’s leadership, faculty […]