Ask Not What Your Institute of Politics Can Do For You, But If It Hazed You

Harvard’s Institute of Politics has been riddled with hazing allegations, a broken culture, and pieces of its own mission to clean up.

According to The Crimson, the chairman of the Harvard Institute of Politics’ (IOP) Gender and Sexuality Coalition feels he was brutally hazed by members of the IOP’s four-man executive team during an optional spring leadership retreat. The details are almost too shocking to include here: he was asked to recite a portion of Democratic President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech in Ed Sheeran’s voice. To make matters worse, alcohol and even water “sat nearby.” Anyone who has been asked by a professor to read a passage out loud in class, and who has proceeded to take a sip of water after, will certainly understand just how dastardly, how unconscionable, the IOP’s actions were.