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Today is the Lord’s Day, but also John’s Day, for we have another dollop of themed bird photos from Dr. Avise.. His notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.  I’ll add here that I’m scheduled to go to South Africa in August to visit friends in Capetown and to see the animals at Kruger National Park. I have to see the big “game” before I croak!

South Africa Birds, Part 3 

This week’s post is Part 3 of a mini-series on birds I photographed in South Africa during an extended seminar trip in 2007.  It shows another dozen or so species from that avian-rich part of the world.  All of today’s birds have the word “Cape” in their common name and were photographed in the Cape Town area.

Cape Batis (Batis capensis) female:

Cape Bulbul (Pycnonotus capensis):

Cape Francolin (Pternistis capensis):

Cape Glossy Starling (Lamprotornis nitens):

Cape Grassbird (Sphenoeacus afer):

Cape Gull (Larus dominicanus) (also known as the Kelp Gull):

Cape Robin-chat (Cossypha caffra):

Cape Sparrow (Passer melanurus):

Cape Sugarbird (Promerops cafer) male:

Cape Sugarbird female:

Cape Teal (Anas capensis):

Cape Turtle Dove (Streptopelia capicola):

Cape Wagtail (Motacilla capensis):

Cape Weaver (Ploceus capensis) male:

Titan’s methane seas have ephemeral “magic islands” that have baffled scientists for years. They may be made of odd, porous clumps of snow

Titan’s methane seas have ephemeral “magic islands” that have baffled scientists for years. They may be made of odd, porous clumps of snow

Everybody knows that the explosive deaths of supermassive stars (called supernovae) lead to the creation of black holes or neutron stars, right? At least, that’s the evolutionary path that astronomers suggest happens. And, these compact objects exist throughout the Universe. But, no one’s ever seen the actual birth process of a neutron star or black hole in action before.

That changed when supernova SN 2022jli occurred in the nearby galaxy NGC 157. This catastrophic stardeath event was discovered in May 2022 by amateur astronomer Berto Monard. Its behavior quickly caught the attention of two teams of professional astronomers. Observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and New Technology Telescope provided high-quality light-curve measurements as well as other data. Those measurements and radiation showed something unusual, not like a “normal” supernova.

Focusing on the Supernova

Astronomers Ping Chan of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Thomas Moore of Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland each led teams who studied the weird behavior of this supernova. Their analysis showed the supernova explosion ended up creating a massive compact object. That was pretty exciting because until now, no one has observed the process happen in (almost) real-time. That makes the light curve a useful window on the creation of either a neutron star or a black hole.

Chan’s team wanted to establish a direct connection between the death of a massive supergiant star and the creation of the object. “In our work, we establish such a direct link,” Chan said and reported the work at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting.

Moore’s team was also intrigued by the light curve of this event. “In SN 2022jli’s data we see a repeating sequence of brightening and fading,” he said. “This is the first time that repeated periodic oscillations, over many cycles, have been detected in a supernova light curve.”

Finding the Missing Link Between Supernovae, Black Holes, and Neutron Stars

Supernovae occur pretty frequently in the Universe. Astronomers study them and chart how their brightness changes over time. After the initial explosion, the light it generates fades out over some time. Usually, it’s a pretty smooth change in the light curve. But, SN 2022jli didn’t fit the “normal” curve, so to speak. Instead of fading out smoothly, the brightness of light from the explosion oscillated in a 12-day-long period. Both teams noticed this oscillation, and Chan’s group also detected the motions of hydrogen gas and gamma-ray bursts in the region.

This is a JWST view of the Crab Nebula. Like other supernovae, a star exploded to create this scene. The result is a rapidly spinning neutron star (a pulsar) at its heart, surrounded by material rushing out from the site of the explosion. SN 2022jli could have either a neutron star or a black hole orbiting with a companion star.

What story does SN 2022jli’s strange light curve tell us about the creation of black holes or neutron stars? Let’s start with the explosion itself. It was a fine example of what astronomers call “Type II supernovae”. Basically, at the end of its life, a supermassive star collapses and then explodes outward. The remaining core collapses further to create one of two types of massive objects. A neutron star is one. It’s what’s left over after the rapidly collapsing core of the star crushes the remaining protons and neutrons of matter into neutrons. It’s essentially a ball of neutrons. Most neutron stars have about the mass of the Sun crushed inside themselves. But, they are small—really small, compared to their progenitor stars. Most are maybe 20 or so kilometers across.

Stellar-mass black holes also come from the deaths of supermassive stars that were at least 20 times the mass of the Sun or more. The core collapses during the event, the same as with a neutron star. But, the mass is so great that the event creates a black hole, crushing all the leftover core material into a pinpoint of dense matter.

Putting Together the Link Between Supernovae and Compact Massive Objects

All the data from the observations helped both teams suggest the following scenario. Like many massive stars, the progenitor of SN 2022jli appears to have had at least one companion star. It probably survived the supernova explosion. The outburst threw out huge amounts of material, and the companion star interacted with it. That caused its atmosphere to “puff up”. The newly created compact object passes through the orbit of the star and sucks hydrogen gas away from the star. That material funnels into an accretion disk around the compact object. Those periodic episodes of matter theft from the star release lots of energy, which gets picked up as regular changes of brightness in the light curve measurements as well as the gamma-ray signals.

After SN 2022jli exploded this may be what it looks like. A compact object and its companion star orbit each other. The possible neutron star or black hole steals hydrogen gas from the neighbor star. Courtesy ESO/L. Calçada

Of course, we can’t see light coming from the compact object itself—whether it’s a neutron star or a black hole. But, we do see radiation from the heated material drawn into the accretion disk around the compact object. And, since astronomers were able to track the changes in the light curve due to activity by the massive object, it amounted to watching its formation. “Our research is like solving a puzzle by gathering all possible evidence,” Chen said about the findings. “All these pieces lining up lead to the truth.”

The next step is to figure out exactly what astronomers saw being formed. Was it a neutron star with tremendously strong magnetic fields and gravity, or a black hole with gravity so strong nothing (not even light) could escape it? Determining that requires additional observations and the capabilities of telescopes not yet online, such as the Extremely Large Telescope due to begin operations in a few years.

For More Information

Missing Link Found: Supernovae Give Rise to Black Holes or Neutron Stars
SN 2022jli: A Type 1c Supernova with Periodic Modulation of Its Light Curve and an Unusually Long RiseA 12.4-day Periodicity in a Close Binary System After a Supernova

The post Black Holes and Neutron Stars are Finally Linked to Supernovae appeared first on Universe Today.

Does the size of an exomoon help determine if life could form on an exoplanet it’s orbiting? This is something a February 2022 study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential for large exomoons to form around large exoplanets (Earth-sized and larger) like how our Moon was formed around the Earth. Despite this study being published almost two years ago, its findings still hold strong regarding the search for exomoons, as astronomers have yet to confirm the existence of any exomoons anywhere in the cosmos. But why is it so important to better understand the potential for large exomoons orbiting large exoplanets?

Dr. Miki Nakajima, who is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester and lead author of the study, tells Universe Today, “For Earth, the Moon plays a major role to determine the length of the day of Earth, ocean tides, and Earth’s spin axis tilt. These are extremely important parameters for life on Earth. Thus, understanding whether a planet has a moon or not would help us understand whether an exoplanet is similar to Earth or not.”

For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate how exomoons could form around an exoplanet based on the giant-impact theory that is the currently accepted model for how our Moon formed around the Earth. The researchers conducted these simulations using a variety of conditions, including rocky and icy exoplanets with the maximum target size being six Earth masses, the size and size ration of the impactor and target, along with a fixed impact velocity and impact angle for the impactor striking the target. In the end, the simulations produced some interesting results pertaining to the formation and evolution of exomoons.

“In my opinion, the most significant result is that our study made a prediction for future exomoon observations,” Dr. Nakajima tells Universe Today. “We predict that relatively small planets (< ~ 1.6 Earth radii) are good candidates to host exomoons. Up until now, most exomoon searches have focused on larger planets. So now we propose that future searches should instead focus on these smaller planets.”

As noted, this study was published almost two years ago, but its findings still hold true in terms of hypothesizing about the existence and potential future discoveries of exomoons, which could help astronomers better understand the conditions necessary for finding life beyond Earth. While the Earth’s Moon is responsible for allowing life to thrive on this planet, smaller moons throughout our solar system have demonstrated that size might not matter in terms of allowing life to potentially thrive on, or beneath, their surfaces. Examples include Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and its smaller icy moon, Enceladus. Given this study focused on exomoons forming around large exoplanets, what can exomoons, regardless of their size, teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

“In my opinion, a planet does not have to have a large moon to host life on its surface,” Dr. Nakajima tells Universe Today. “However, at least for Earth, the Moon plays a crucial role on the life on Earth. So, if we want to find a second Earth, a planet with a large moon would be a great candidate. I hope our study helps us to identify what planets likely host moons.”

In terms of follow-up studies that might have occurred in the two years since this study was published, Dr. Nakajima tells Universe Today that her and her colleagues have written a recent study about how the Earth’s Moon might have formed under a different process, and the paper is currently in peer-review. Additionally, Dr. Nakajima tells Universe Today she is currently participating in a proposal for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with the goal of identifying exomoons orbiting relatively small exoplanets.

This 2022 study and upcoming JWST proposal both highlight how exomoons have come to the forefront for the search for life beyond Earth, and specifically beyond our solar system. While the existence of even one exomoon has yet to be confirmed, a growing list of exomoon candidates has garnered the attention of astronomers, with these exomoon candidates potentially orbiting both Jupiter- and Earth-sized worlds.

When will astronomers find the first exomoon, and how many exomoons will researchers find in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Big Planets Don’t Necessarily Mean Big Moons appeared first on Universe Today.

Astronomers routinely explore the universe using different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum from the familiar visible light to radio waves and infra-red to gamma rays. There is a problem with studying the Universe through the electromagnetic spectrum, we can only see light from a time when the Universe was only 380,000 years old. An alternate approach is to use gravitational waves which are thought to have been present in the early Universe and may allow us to probe back even further. 

The concept of gravity waves is really quite simple. Imagine the fabric of space as an enormous sea.  The movement of any object within that lake will cause ripples that permeate through the water. Just as a sea fog will limit the visibility, the ripples can still travel through . Gravity waves are like ripples in space caused by the movement of objects. It was an idea predicted by Einstein in 1916 in his General Theory of Relativity. 

Gravity waves are not just a theory though, they have been detected. The LIGO-Virgo observatory detected gravity waves on 15 September 2015 from the merging of two black holes with 29 and 36 solar masses 1.3 billion light years away. There have since been over 100 detections so gravity waves are most certainly real. 

LIGO Observatory

Using gravity waves, Rishav Roshan and Graham White from University of Southampton believe they can probe the Universe’s earliest moments.  In the early moments of the formation of the Univserse, space was opaque becuase the Universe was full of ionised gas and electromagnetic radiation could not permeate. It is this barrier that Roshan and White believe they can break through.

In their paper, they discuss three major strategies for detecting gravitational waves; pulsar timing arrays, astrometry and interferometry. The techniques are similar and all rely upon gravity waves disturbing the space in between elements of the systemn. In the case of the interferometer, the disturbance of space between the optics of the system reveal gravity waves; in pulsar arrays, the variation in timings of pulses from known pulsar systems gives away their presence and with the astrometric technique, tiny changes in the target object’s angular velocity reveal the presence of the waves. 

Since their discovery, gravitational waves have provided invaluable information about events in the far reaches of the Universe. Now it looks like they can also be used to unlock some of the mysteries not only across space, but across time. To enable us to get a more fuller understanding of the Universe beyond the Standard Model (which was developed in the 1970’s it articulates how matter behaves taking account of the four fundamental forces; strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitation) it seems gravity waves hold the key.

Source : Using gravitational waves to see the first second of the Universe

The post Gravitational Waves Could Show us the First Minute of the Universe appeared first on Universe Today.

On Earth, it seems to be true that life will find a way; in the deepest ocean, the saltiest ocean or the highest mountain, live seems to find a way to get a foothold. One of the key ingredients for life seems to be the necessity for water. Until now, it was thought that there was a limit to the level of salinity within which life could thrive. A team of biologists have found bacterial life thrives in salty ponds where the water evaporates leaving high levels of salt. This only serves to expand the likely envrionments across the Universe that life could evolve. 

The search for life away from planet Earth has long fascinated humanity. Studies have often focussed on salt water environments since the salt lowers the waters freezing point allowing it to remain liquid over a wider range of temperatures. There are the added benefits with salt that is a fabulous preservative for any life that may have evolved and left signs of its existence. 

The research is part of a larger program of work called Oceans Across Space and Time which is led by Cornell Iniversity and funded by NASAs Astrobiology program. It has the ambitious aim to understand how ocean worlds and life co-evolve to produce detectable signs of life, past or present! They hope to be able to help advance our understanding of teh conditions that make ocean worlds habitable and develop new ways to detect it. 

The team from Standord University paper was published their report showing the analysis of the metabolic activity in thousands of individual cells from brine ponds in California. In these ponds, the salt is harvested by allowing the water to evaporate. It is in these samples that that life has been found to survive. 

Examples of just how life has evolved in such environments can be seen in the South Bay Salt Works which were part of this study. The ponds have an amazing array of colours thanks to microbes that glow green, red, pink and orange. These amazing microbes have adapted to survive the high levels of salinity that would ordinarily have been inhospitable to other forms of life.

The ultimate goal of the study was to find out at what point cell activity such as division, cease to exist. Pure water has an activity level of 1 while salt water level is around 0.98. Prior to this study, it was believed that most activity stoped below 0.9 where salt levels become too high although laboratory studies showed that cell division would cease around 0.63. Following the study, it seems life can be sustained at levels as low as 0.54.

The results have started to change our views of the environments within which life can evolve and even be sustained. Not only does this now increase the likelihood of finding life, it enables us to widen the search for life across high salinity bodies of water and it even helps us to refocus the techniques used to continue the search.

Source : New research on microbes expands the known limits for life on Earth and beyond

The post Microbes Can Survive in Saltier Water than Previously Believed appeared first on Universe Today.

The early universe, according to the Standard Model of Cosmology, ought to be a fairly homogenous place, with little structure or arrangement. In 2021, however, astronomers discovered a large pattern of galaxies forming a giant arc 3.3 billion light years across. Now, a second large-scale pattern has emerged. This time, it’s an enormous circle of galaxies, nicknamed the Big Ring. Together, the Giant Arc and the Big Ring present a challenge to the Standard Model, and may send cosmologists back to the drawing board.

“The Big Ring and Giant Arc are the same distance from us, near the constellation of Boötes the Herdsman, meaning they existed at the same cosmic time when the universe was only half of its present age. They are also in the same region of sky, at only 12 degrees apart when observing the night sky,” says Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire who discovered both structures alongside supervisor Roger Clowes and collaborator Gerard Williger.

“Identifying two extraordinary ultra-large structures in such close configuration raises the possibility that together they form an even more extraordinary cosmological system.”

The Big Ring and the Giant Arc are made up of galaxies that are so dim and so faint they wouldn’t normally be visible. However, distant quasars (bright point sources caused by active black holes at the hearts of galaxies) shine light through the dim galaxies, where matter absorbs some of the light.

In particular, Lopez and her colleagues were looking for evidence of dim galaxies blocking a Magnesium ion called Mg-II. They found it in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, giving them both the position and distance of the otherwise invisible galaxies.

This enabled Lopez to map the galaxies in three dimensions, and doing so revealed the Giant Arc and Big Ring 9.2 billion years away.

The Big Ring, spanning 1.3 billion lightyears in diameter. Credit: University of Central Lancashire.

At that point in the universe’s history, according to the Standard Model, any structure that exists shouldn’t be larger than 1.2 billion light years across. Yet both the Arc and the Ring far exceed that, and they don’t seem to be coincidental:

“We did some statistics and found that the Big Ring has a significance of 5.2 Sigma. This is exceeding that 5-Sigma golden threshold,” says Lopez, referring to the usual level of significance scientists require of themselves to confirm a discovery.

One possible explanation for large structures like these is called Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO). In the earliest moments of the universe, sound and pressure waves, shaped by gravitational interactions, could form ‘bubbles’ of matter across large scales.

BAO is allowed by the Standard Model of Cosmology. However, it tends to create spherical structures, whereas the Big Ring is two-dimensional.

So a different explanation is necessary.

At a press conference at the American Astronomical Society annual meeting on January 10, 2024, Lopez alluded to two possible alternative explanations.

The first is that the structures might be evidence for cosmic strings: one-dimensional topological defects proposed in the 1970s as part of string theory. Cosmic strings could, theoretically, have been created in the early universe and would have left their mark on the structure of matter.

The Big Ring and the Giant Arc might also be explained by an entirely different model of cosmology, such as the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) model proposed by physicist Roger Penrose.

In this model, the universe goes through endless cycles of big bang after big bang. In CCC, there is no need for the universe to collapse back together in a Big Crunch, but rather it expands indefinitely, and all matter decays, until, mathematically, the difference between the empty expanded universe and a Big Bang singularity is just a question of scale – and when there is no matter (as at the end of the universe and at the beginning), scale is irrelevant. An expanded empty universe can become the next singularity, restarting the cycle.

Importantly, CCC would leave behind evidence of the previous cycle (what Penrose calls an Aeon) in the new Aeon. In other words, it could create structures the size of the Big Ring and the Giant Arc.

These are captivating theories. However, so far, no alternative model of the universe, not even CCC, has been able to supplant the Standard Model of Cosmology for its sheer explanatory power to describe what we observe in the universe around us. But the Standard Model does have a growing number of cracks and gaps, hinting that it might one day be improved or supplanted.

The Giant Arc and the Big Ring together represent one such crack, a place where what we know about the physics of the universe fails to explain what we observe.

It is, at the least, a reason to keep looking.

Learn More:

“A Big Cosmological Mystery,” University of Central Lancashire.

Watch the Press Conference. AAS 243, Janurary 10 2024.

The post Two Giant Structures Have Been Found Billions of Light-Years Away appeared first on Universe Today.

A new study presents an innovative graphene-based neurotechnology with the potential for a transformative impact in neuroscience and medical applications.

To combat viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, synthetic biology offers new technological approaches whose performance is being validated in experiments. Researchers applied data integration and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a machine learning approach that can predict the efficacy of CRISPR technologies more accurately than before.

New research finds that smartphone usage can increase and even become unhealthy for those who have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Tidal range schemes can protect estuaries and coastal areas from the effects of sea level rise, according to researchers who say that tidal range schemes are vital to protect habitats, housing and businesses from a rising sea level estimated to be over one metre within 80 years. High tides can be limited to existing levels simply by closing sluices and turbines and existing low tide levels can be maintained by pumping. Development of estuarine barrages has been hampered by misconceptions about their operation and fears of disturbance of the ecologically sensitive intertidal areas.

Clothes and other textiles are among the materials that we are the worst at recycling. But this may change. Researchers have developed a new technology that can separate out fibers in mixed fabrics.

Research is helping shed light on the important interaction between users and remote drivers that oversee the operation of automated vehicles.

Research is helping shed light on the important interaction between users and remote drivers that oversee the operation of automated vehicles.

Researchers have developed a sensor array design technology inspired by the human auditory system. By mimicking the human ear's ability to distinguish sounds through tonotopy, this innovative sensor array approach could optimize the application of sensor arrays in fields such as robotics, aviation, healthcare, and industrial machinery.

Researchers are tapping into idled electric vehicles to act as mobile generators and help power overworked and aging electricity grids. After analyzing energy demand on Alberta's power grid during rush hour, the research proposes an innovative way to replenish electrical grids with power generated from fuel cells in trucks.

A groundbreaking 3D, three-layer nanomatrix vascular sheet that possesses multiple features of atherosclerosis has been applied for developing a high-throughput functional assay of drug candidates to treat this disease, researchers report.

Navigation satellites couldn’t accomplish anything without extremely accurate clocks. But a regular clock won’t do. Only atomic clocks are accurate enough, and that’s because they tell time with electrons.

Those atomic clocks wear out over time, and that’s what the image shows.

The strange forms are reminiscent of penitentes, the unusual landscape features found in cold environments like the Atacama desert. They’re also found on Pluto, though they’re the size of skyscrapers there.

This alien-looking landscape shows penitentes in the Atacama Desert. Penitentes are made of snow that’s sculpted by the Sun and sublimation. Image Credit: ESO Photo Ambassador Babak A. Tafreshi.

The leading image has nothing to do with alien landscapes. It’s from a scanning electron microscope. It shows the surface of test glass from a project aimed at improving the lifetime of atomic clocks in the Galileo Navigation Satellite System (GNSS.) Each of these peculiar marks is smaller than one-hundredth of a millimetre. They’re the result of plasma interacting with the glass surface inside an atomic clock and degrading it over time.

The ESA is working on improving the atomic clocks in the GNSS. The system has 30 satellites, with 24 in full service and six acting as spares. Each of the satellites has four atomic clocks: two passive hydrogen maser (PHM) clocks and two rubidium clocks as backups. In 2017, six of the hydrogen and three of the rubidium clocks on some of the satellites failed. Operations weren’t affected because of the backup clocks. But failures like it are driving the ESA to improve the clocks. The clocks on the GNSS last about 20 years, and the ESA would like to extend their lifetime.

This is one of the passive hydrogen maser clocks that are inside the GNSS satellite. It’s about 50 cm (19.6 inches) long. Image Credit: Leonardo Airborne and Space Systems.

Passive hydrogen masers are based on electrons orbiting atoms. Electrons can gain and lose energy, and each time they do, they change energy states. In a PHM, a maser is used to stimulate electrons into changing energy states. When they do, they emit microwave signals at an extremely stable frequency. That stability gives the clocks on the Galileo satellites their extreme accuracy: they’re only off by one second every three million years.

PHMs are extremely complex. A detailed description of how they work is here. Two separate glass bulbs play key roles in the clock and its accuracy. One is a plasma confiner, and inside of it, hydrogen molecules are separated into hydrogen atoms. But the plasma degrades the inside of the bulb, and the degradation affects the atomic clock’s lifetime.

The leading image shows the damage on the inside of the glass bulb caused by the plasma and associated effects. The goal is to extend the life of the bulb, which extends the life of the clocks, and the life of each satellite in the GNSS.

Accuracy is extremely important in navigation satellites. Even a tiny inaccuracy can compound and lead to larger errors. That’s why these extremely complex and accurate PHMs are used. If the clocks are out by as little as three nanoseconds, then a user’s location on the Earth’s surface can be off by one meter.

But accuracy isn’t a problem. The lifetime of the PHMs is the bottleneck. The ESA and EU are planning their next generation of Galileo satellites, a system that serves over four billion users. It’s called Galileo Second Generation (G2G) and will begin deploying this year. These tests are aimed at making these and future navigation satellites have longer lives.

The post This Alien Landscape is Actually a Microscopic View of an Atomic Clock appeared first on Universe Today.

Several Jewish students at Harvard, and an organization called “Students Against Antisemitism” (SAA), have brought suit against Harvard University for its antisemitic behavior.  While the plaintiffs aren’t going after Harvard on First Amendment Grounds (and wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they tried to), the allegations in their suit involving genuine violations of federal law.

First, Harvard is accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says this:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

As the suit establishes (click below to read the long 77-page document), Harvard does indeed receive federal monies, most notably through grants to faculty.

Second, the suit asserts that the antisemitic activity at Harvard, involving students, faculty, and off-campus groups, did indeed deny Jewish students the full benefits of an education at the University, as they were intimidated to the point of finding it hard or impossible to study; some were denied access to study spaces by vocal pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel students; some classes included a huge dollop of antisemitic material, including canceling classes so students could go to pro-Palestinian demonstrations (these are invariably anti-Israeli and often antisemitic); and, finally, at least one Jewish student was attacked. This seems to add up to to “discrimination” under Title VI.

Further, and this is shocking, Harvard did little or nothing when Jewish students complained to the administration about the disruption of their education. In response, the administration invariably said, “We’ll look into it and get back to you,” eventually doing nothing. One sees this over and over again in the complaint.

Two more items are singled out. As I’ve discussed before, Harvard did not enforce its speech code uniformly: while mandating punishment for things like “fatphobia,” “ableism”, and “racism” (but not against Jewish students!), they ignored bigoted behaviors that, if directed against blacks instead of Jews, would have been punished. (Harvard does not have a First-Amendment-based speech code, and so it’s been irregular or even hypocritical in enforcing speech “violations.”)

Finally, Harvard allowed its own students (and outside organizations, who aren’t given the same license as registered student organizations), to engage in illegal violations of University rules of conduct, including sit-ins and prohibited demonstrations. In perhaps the most ridiculous demonstration of this kind of hypocrisy, Harvard not only allowed pro-Palestinian demonstrators to illegally occupy a University building, but even bought the demonstrators candy and burritos! (Jews, of course, never got burritos, as they don’t engage in sit-ins.)

As one of my friends wrote me after having read the complaint: “If even a fraction of this is true, the place has become a cesspool.”

I’m afraid he’s right.

I read the entire document, and it’s pretty shocking. You can access it by clicking below. Unlike most lawsuits, it makes pretty absorbing reading, as the degree of antisemitism that Harvard allowed, without punishing prohibited behaviors, is fascinating.  No doubt a lot of this is due to the DEI mentality that infests Harvard (ex-President Gay was infected with DEI-ism), so that Jewish students are perceived as oppressors who aren’t worthy of much protection. But perhaps I was just intrigued because this was where I got my Ph.D., and I was once proud of that (However, going to Harvard was, for me, a complete accident, and some day I’ll tell that story.)

The suit:

The plaintiffs include Students Against Antisemitism (described in the lawsuit as “a not-for-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Delaware, formed for the purpose of defending human and civil rights, including the right of individuals to equal protection and to be free from antisemitism in higher education, through litigation and other means”, as well as Alexander Kestenbaum, a Jewish student at Harvard, and five other Jewish students who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

Before I give excerpts from the lawsuit, here’s an article on it from Thursday’s Boston Globe. Click on the headline to see it, though it’s probably paywalled. I give an excerpt below it, but reading the complaint above tells you a lot more.

From the article:

Several graduate and law students at Harvard University filed a federal lawsuit against the Ivy League school this week, accusing the administration of failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment on campus during the Israel-Hamas war.

The 79-page civil complaint, filed Wednesday in US District Court in Boston, alleges that antisemitism at Harvard has become especially “severe and pervasive” after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, with militants reportedly raping and torturing civilians. Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that has killed more than 23,000 people in Gaza.

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“Harvard, America’s leading university, has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment,” the complaint reads.

Only one of the six plaintiffs is named; Divinity School master’s degree candidate Alexander Kestenbaum.

The others are identified as members of Students Against Antisemitism, as is Kestenbaum. The other plaintiffs are enrolled at Harvard Law School and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, according to the complaint.

A Harvard spokesperson said Thursday that the university has no comment “on pending litigation.”

*******************’

Now for the lawsuit. itself.  I’ll give my own brief summaries (flush left) to bits of the suit (indented).

The gist of the complaint:

Harvard, America’s leading university, has become a bastion of rampant antiJewish hatred and harassment. Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered, tortured, raped, burned, and mutilated 1,200 people—including infants, children, and the elderly—antisemitism at Harvard has been particularly severe and pervasive. Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel. Those mobs have occupied buildings, classrooms, libraries, student lounges, plazas, and study halls, often for days or weeks at a time, promoting violence against Jews and harassing and assaulting them on campus. Jewish students have been attacked on social media, and Harvard faculty members have promulgated antisemitism in their courses and dismissed and intimidated students who object. What is most striking about all of this is Harvard’s abject failure and refusal to lift a finger to Case 1:24-cv-10092 Document 1 Filed 01/10/24 Page 1 of 77 2 stop and deter this outrageous antisemitic conduct and penalize the students and faculty who perpetrate it.

The prohibited participation of unrecognized student groups in demonstrations:

44. The Student Organization Policies also provide that unrecognized student organizations are not permitted “to conduct any activity at Harvard even though their activities involve Harvard” students, except under “special circumstances,” that Harvard will not provide “access, support, or benefits” to unrecognized student organizations, and that students may not use the “Harvard” name or marks in organizations’ activities without permission from a dean or the provost.

45. Harvard nevertheless regularly permits unrecognized student groups such as Harvard Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (“Harvard BDS”) and Harvard Afro to conduct, while using Harvard’s name, disruptive antisemitic protests inside Harvard buildings and on Harvard grounds without consequence. These unrecognized groups have, in recent months, extensively engaged in discrimination against, and harassment of, Jewish and Israeli students and continue to violate numerous Harvard policies by holding unauthorized events in which they recruit hundreds of students to interrupt classes with calls for “globaliz[ing] the Intifada” and violence against Jews and Israelis, among other disruptive and harassing conduct. Harvard takes no action to prevent these organizations from regularly harassing Jewish and Israeli students in violation of Harvard’s policies.

This also happens at the University of Chicago, in which an unrecognized group called “UChicago United for Palestine” regularly participates in demonstrations and sit-ins, both legal and prohibited. The University doesn’t do anything about it.

Disruption and deplatforming of study groups and classes by pro-Palestinian demonstrators (again, this is prohibited under Harvard University regulations):

63. Harvard Out of Palestine (“HOOP”), another student group, led a relentless campaign against retired Israeli Major General Amos Yadlin, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government (“Harvard Kennedy”). For example, on February 1, 2022, HOOP organized a disruptive rally outside Yadlin’s first study group of the semester. As HOOP posted on its Instagram page, the harassment “continue[d] despite [the study group’s] efforts to change rooms every week.” HOOP also shared a video that showed its members standing in two parallel rows just outside the open door of Yadlin’s classroom, holding large banners and flags, so that anyone entering or exiting would be forced to walk through the gauntlet. The video also depicts protesters chanting and disrupting Yadlin’s discussion with students in the classroom.

64. On April 7, 2022, HOOP marched through campus, including in and out of buildings, banging on drums and using a megaphone to shout further accusations at Yadlin, charging him with personal responsibility for alleged “genocide.” Throughout the semester, Harvard did nothing to prevent HOOP from severely and pervasively harassing Yadlin and his students, notwithstanding, among other policies, Harvard’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities proscribing such conduct as “unacceptable” violations of Harvard policy.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators storm Harvard Law school in violation of student regulations, terrorizing Jewish students. Cops stand by and do nothing, nor does the administration:

99. During this upheaval, SAA Member #1, SAA Member #2, SAA Member #3, and SAA Member #5 were in a study room on the first floor of Harvard Law’s main building, attending a small discussion session with a former assistant to the president during the Trump administration, Jason Greenblatt. At the session, the students heard drumming outside the study room and found a mob at the entrance to Harvard Law with a giant banner reading “Stop the Genocide in Gaza.” SAA Member #2 watched as HUPD officers observed, but took no action against, the hundreds of protesters, including non-HUID cardholders, who were bypassing card scanners and infiltrating the building. The group stormed Harvard Law’s main building, marched down the length of the building’s primary first-floor hallway, and blocked the hallway outside the study room where the SAA members and Greenblatt were hiding. Fearing a violent attack, students in the study room removed indicia of their Jewishness, such as kippot, or hid under desks.

101. SAA Member #2 emailed Assistant Director of Student Life Jeffrey Sierra after the mob stormed Harvard Law to describe what happened. In two previous meetings with Sierra, she had asked him what could be done to stop the rampant antisemitism on campus and explained its impact on her. In both of these meetings, and in response to her email regarding the October 19 incursion, Sierra directed SAA Member #2 to CAMHS for mental health services and, on several occasions, said he was “not in a position to do more.” When SAA Member #2 asked whom she could contact instead, Sierra said he would speak with more senior administrators, but SAA Member #2 never heard from anyone else about her concerns.

Burritogate!:  In this one, students sitting in and violating the campus code avoid discipline.  Instead of removing the students, the administration allowed them to stay overnight, and the deans brought the trespassing students candy and burritos! It seems that nobody was ever disciplined.

119. The utter inadequacy and clear unreasonableness of Harvard’s response to antisemitism on campus was further exemplified on November 16 and 17 when, for twenty-four hours, students took over University Hall, demanding that “Harvard administrators release a call for a ceasefire in Gaza,” announce that “antisemitism [is] not the same as anti-Zionism,” and “investigate Islamophobia and suppression of pro-Palestine speech on campus.” Rather than eject or otherwise penalize those students, nine hours into the takeover, Dean Khurana and Adams House Faculty Dean Salmaan Keshavjee brought the occupying students burritos and candy. After twelve hours, Dean Khurana gave them the chance to leave without disciplinary action; when the students refused, he allowed them to remain overnight. When questioned at the House Antisemitism Hearing why the deans provided food to unlawful protesters and promised them no consequences, President Gay evaded the question, stating, “where conduct violates our policies . . . we have processes underway.”

122. On November 29, Harvard PSC, Harvard BDS, and Harvard Afro again organized self-proclaimed “disruptive” mass walkouts from classes across campus, targeting major lecture halls to disrupt the largest number of students and took over the Science Center’s classrooms and lobby, among other locations. During their takeover of the Science Center lobby—conduct prohibited by Harvard’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities—protesters surrounded and intimidated Jewish students, using megaphones to shout genocidal antisemitic chants, including “globalize the Intifada,” “long live the Intifada,” “from the river to the sea,” and, in Arabic, “water to water, Palestine will be Arab.”

123. The disruption, like many before it, was led by a student recognized by Jewish students as among the primary instigators of antisemitic abuse on campus, whose presence causes considerable fear and alarm among the Jewish students who live in the same dormitory, Adams House, which he has turned into a base of operations for anti-Jewish activism. Adams House Faculty Dean Keshavjee—who supplied burritos and candy to the University Hall occupiers—has done nothing to ameliorate the situation.

Harvard cancels festival that partly celebrated Judaism, fails to stop students from disrupting a Divinity School event:

125. On December 6, rather than prevent protesters from disrupting Harvard Divinity’s Seasons of Light celebration that evening—a “beloved annual multireligious service” and Harvard Divinity’s only annual event that includes a celebration of the Jewish faith—Harvard canceled it. That same day, Harvard GS4P students took over Harvard Divinity’s “Holiday Tea,” interrupting the Harvard administrators, faculty, staff, and students who had gathered there by unfurling a large banner alleging “genocide in Gaza,” yelling about a “Zionist genocidal campaign,” shrieking “there can be no peace without justice,” “free, free Palestine,” and “shame!” The Harvard administrators did nothing to stop the students. Kestenbaum, who was present, emailed the Antisemitism Advisory Group to report this blatant violation of Harvard policy—which occurred after President Gay publicly declared that Harvard would discipline this type of violation—but has not received a response.

Harvard asks students to remove an outside menorah at night instead of the campus police protecting it. The University allows a banned protest at Widener Library. 

126. Rather than take steps to protect Jewish students, Harvard has thus required that they limit or conceal their activities. For example, as Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi revealed, Harvard requires that he remove the Chabad Hanukkah menorah from the campus at night so that it would not be vandalized. Rather than ensuring the safety and success of the Case 1:24-cv-10092 Document 1 Filed 01/10/24 Page 46 of 77 47 Seasons of Light celebration and making it unequivocally clear that vandalizing the menorah was unacceptable and would be met with harsh punishment, Harvard addresses antisemitism by canceling events that include celebrations of Jewish culture and warning celebrants to hide Jewish symbols.

127. At the same time Jewish students were being cautioned by Harvard to abandon or conceal their identity, students celebrating the October 7 massacre and advocating death to Israelis and Jews were free to do so on campus and over social media, not deterred or punished by Harvard in any way. On December 10, 2023, during final exam week, Harvard PSC, Harvard BDS, and Harvard Afro oversaw a disruptive, aggressive, flag- and banner-waving takeover of Harvard’s Widener Library, and then marched to Massachusetts Hall, where students chanted “from the river to the sea.” Kestenbaum had intended to study at Widener but abandoned his plan, as he was concerned that his religious clothing would make him a target for abuse or violence. Harvard took no action to stop the Widener protest or discipline the students or organizations that participated in it.

Professors allow students to leave class to attend a general anti-Israel strike “in solidarity”:

136. On October 20, Professor Clio Takas emailed her students stating, “[a]s many of you know, [Harvard PSC] and [Harvard GS4P] are organizing a class walk-out and general strike . . . . I have decided to cancel section today in solidarity.” Similarly, Harvard Public Health Professor Nancy Krieger accommodated students who wanted to participate in the October 20 global strike by permitting the vast majority of students to leave class to protest. Krieger then excused the remaining seven (which included several Jewish students) and asked them to return along with the protesting students at noon. As it turned out, Krieger and the protesting students returned to the classroom some forty minutes earlier than the professor had said class would resume and, in the absence of the Jewish students, Krieger resumed her lecture.

And a section on hypocrisy taken from the lawsuit:

Harvard Only Embraces Free Expression Principles When It Can Use Them to Protect and Permit Antisemitic Harassment

154. At the heart of Harvard’s double standard is its discriminatory application of free expression and other principles. Harvard’s campus is a safe space for students of all protected minority groups other than Jews.

155. Harvard’s invocation of free expression principles to justify permitting antisemitic harassment is both hypocritical and false, especially given that Harvard is ranked dead last on free speech, ranked “abysmal,” out of the 248 colleges assessed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Harvard protects speech only when it espouses positions Harvard supports and prohibits speech adverse to the interests of other groups Harvard deems worthy of protection. Harvard’s double standard is apparent when one compares Harvard’s failure to discipline anti-Jewish harassment with its warning to freshmen—during the Title IX training— that “sizeism,” “fatphobia,” “cisheterosexism,” “racism,” “transphobia,” “ageism,” and “ableism” are prohibited because they “contribute to an environment that perpetrates violence.”

156. Harvard also has no problem censoring controversial speakers or discussions— unless they espouse antisemitic views, in which case Harvard insists it is obligated to permit them on free expression grounds. In 2021, for example, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences canceled a course on a policing strategy involving military tactics after student organizations expressed concerns about the subject matter. And in 2022, the Harvard English Department disinvited Dr. Devin Buckley from speaking on campus because she is on the board of an organization that opposes incarcerating biological males with biological females or permitting them to participate in women’s sports. But, as alleged above, Harvard readily permitted El-Kurd and Hill to appear on campus spewing anti-Jewish rhetoric, Holocaust denial, and calls for Israel’s extermination.

Below is the relief that the suit is asking for.  I have no idea whether the plaintiffs will win, but the document, if it allegations are true, makes a compelling case against Harvard.  What bothers me most as an alum is the University’s abject failure to do anything about the Jewish students’ complaints. Even Claudine Gay was guilty of that non-responsiveness. Right now, Harvard looks pretty bad.

If this suit goes through—and it could be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court—Harvard could no longer violate Title VI. In practice, that means that they’d have to enforce campus rules about demonstrations, and would have to be evenhanded in enforcing the University speech code. Fingers crossed.