A New York Timesreporter filed an HR complaint against his editor, alleging that the editor issued a “death threat” to him during a heated dispute over a story of Harvard University’s handling of the demands of the Donald Trump administration.According to a report by the Breaker newsletter, business editorEllen Pollock and reporter Rob Copeland had an argument that lasted for hours. Another editor, Michael Corkery, was also present at the meeting. Pollock allegedly said if the Harvard story exceeds 2,000 words, she would ‘kill’ Copeland, Corkery and then herself. The comment, though intended to be a joke and not a death threat, did not humor Copeland who immediately characterized the statement as an ‘HR violation’ and filed an official complaint against Pollock. New York Post reported that following the complaint, Copeland was advised to take time away from his work but he declined. Pollock issued an apology. The said article, however, did exceed 2,000 words and was 2,281 words.
What was the Harvard article?
On April 22, NYT published the article titled: As Harvard is hailed a hero, some donors still want it to strike a deal. It was co-authored by Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell and Michael S Schmidt. “Harvard frantically tried to avoid a showdown with the Trump administration. Now many of its big donors are pushing the university’s leaders to back down and renew talks with the White House,” it said. In the latest development of Harvard vs Trump, the education department announced that Harvard will not get any new federal research grants until it complies with what the Trump administration wants.Harvard is not backing down, they are now proofreading education secretary Linda McMahon’s stern letter. “Harvard is engaging in a systemic (sic) pattern of violating federal law,” McMahon wrote in her letter. Many social media posts claimed, Harvard corrected it to ‘systematic’ apart from making other corrections.
