Tough recent press for Boston University. Today’s Globe includes these articles:
- Debate at BU extends to safety, Women’s hot line response at issue (“women’s advocates at BU said bigger changes would be needed to address a pervasive “rape culture’’ at the school, one they said was exemplified by recent comments by longtime hockey coach Jack Parker”
- BU task force must underscore need for hockey team to change (“BU hockey must change or give up the team.”)
- The weak-kneed BU Law School (“Retired Probate Judge Christina Harms has lost her chance for a dream job helping Boston University Law School students find clerkships and internships with federal and state judges. She’ll get over it. But BU Law School lost something dearer when it dangled a job offer in front of Harms and then withdrew it: its good name in the legal community.”)
One positive story–which the Globe fails to discuss clearly–is that the National Institutes of Health issued its risk assessment report on BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, which stands completed but largely unoccupied near the Medical Campus in the South End. The report concludes that “the risks of infections or deaths resulting from accidents or malevolent acts at the NEIDL are generally very low to only remotely possible.” There’s a public hearing on the NIH findings on April 19. I hope this means the NEIDL will finally receive all the permits it needs for its full range of laboratories.