City Life Archives - Boston Magazine

Retired Police Dogs Could Get a Pension, If This State House Bill Passes

Simone Migliori — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:00:13 +0000

Illustration by Jeannie Phan

The hours and days following the marathon bombings were harrowing for Newton Police K-9 Dakota. Together with his human partner, he helped secure downtown Boston after the attack and, days later, doggedly pursued suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev through the streets of Watertown. Like many first responders, he returned changed. Dakota developed what would later be recognized as canine post-traumatic stress disorder, becoming fearful, withdrawn, and unable to function. At the time, there was no formal diagnosis, no treatment protocol, and no clear plan for dogs whose service left lasting trauma. Euthanasia was considered.

Instead, Dakota was brought to James LaMonte, who took the German shepherd mix into his training facility and began developing a tailored rehabilitation program. That work not only saved Dakota’s life but also became the foundation for the K9 PTSD Research Center in Seekonk, a nonprofit dedicated to treating retired military and law-enforcement dogs suffering from trauma. Dakota’s recovery—and the larger issue of post-service care for working dogs—is documented in the 2023 film Healing Dakota, now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Thirteen years later, as Boston prepares for another marathon, Dakota’s story has resurfaced in a new place: the State House. Dakota’s Law, a bill currently before the Massachusetts Legislature, would create a state-managed fund to help cover medical and trauma care for retired police dogs—support that did not exist when Dakota left service. Filed in January 2025 by state Representative Steven Xiarhos and others, the proposal has advanced out of committee in consecutive sessions, an important step in a legislature where only a small fraction of bills ultimately become law. “I was so impacted by James’s care of these dogs,” says Xiarhos, who in 2022 was successful in passing Nero’s Law, which allows injured police K-9s to be treated and transported by EMTs. Under the new proposed legislation, the fund would be administered by a committee and distributed through grants for eligible K-9 care.

In the meantime, LaMonte continues to house and care for retired and wounded K-9s—often for the remainder of their lives—operating entirely through donations. “Too many nights I went to sleep carrying a quiet fear and a heavy weight on my heart—the worry of not knowing if I would have the money if something serious happened [to one of the dogs], if an unexpected surgery or medical emergency put their life on the line,” LaMonte says. “Dakota’s Law would change everything. It would mean their care is no longer uncertain. It would mean their future is protected.”

This article was first published in the print edition of the April 2026 issue with the headline: “Dakota’s Law.”

Related: The Heartrending Tale of Kitt the Police Dog

Can Steven Pinker Save Harvard?

Simone Migliori — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:00:49 +0000

Photo by Ken Richardson

Steven Pinker is one of the most famous—and divisive—academics in America. A cognitive psychologist at Harvard, he’s spent five decades writing about how we think, picking fights with the left, and wading into culture wars that most professors avoid. Bill Gates calls him a favorite writer. His critics call him a cover for racists. He’s been accused of providing intellectual ammunition to the alt-right, and of dismissing inconvenient evidence when it doesn’t fit his theories. He’s also, right now, one of the loudest voices pushing Harvard to change.

My introduction to him, though, was surprisingly gentle.

The past few years, Pinker has turned his attention to what’s happening at Harvard itself—a lack of academic freedom, the monoculture he sees taking over, and the groupthink undermining research and education. What first caught my eye was something he wrote for the Boston Globe in 2024, on how Harvard had been handling student protests over the war in Gaza. Pinker wrote about teaching Sunday school as a young man, leading students through moral dilemmas with no obvious right or wrong answer. Now, he said, he found himself “wishing that my august institution taught its students this skill.”

Which demands a pointed question: If Harvard isn’t teaching students to think through hard problems for themselves, what, exactly, is the mission of the university?

This struck me as bold, since Pinker draws a paycheck from Harvard, but even more to the point, it seemed quite reasonable. And calm. Also, right at the heart of what we need to figure out about higher education.

It gets immediately complicated, however, given that a lot of people, including President Donald Trump, have been asking the same questions in a much harsher way. Trump has had a great deal to say about our elite universities, especially Harvard, and none of it is good. This has put Pinker in a bind between the woke and Trump. Between indoctrination from the left and whatever the Trump administration is. So Pinker has written not just about the monoculture at Harvard, but, lately, about the fallout if the Trump administration is able to drastically cut the school’s federal funding.

Pinker has fashioned himself as a public intellectual—someone who takes on big issues and demands that we do, too. It’s tricky territory. Of course, he could make a left turn and simply shut up. But speaking out, having his say, is what he does and wants to do, and—though he can be shy about admitting it—enjoys doing.

Pinker is taking this moment on not by jumping up and down, but in the same clear-as-a-bell way I first discovered—by getting right to the problem. In “Harvard Derangement Syndrome,” which ran in the New York Times last May, he argued that universities are obsessed with implicit racism and sexism but blind to a bigger problem: “my-side bias,” the tendency to believe whatever our political tribe believes. Universities, he wrote, should expect faculty to “leave their politics at the classroom door.” To that end, he even suggested “a bit of D.E.I. for conservatives.”

But Pinker’s critics—and there are many, especially in academia—argue that he’s guilty of exactly what he decries: my-side bias, ideological blinders, a willingness to engage with far-right figures in ways that give them legitimacy. He says he doesn’t set out to spark controversy—though he seems to welcome it when it comes. But it’s a double-edged sword in a dangerous time: Pinker has leaped into the fray of what ails Harvard—and higher education in general—starting with his own questions about our universities: What are they doing? Who are they for? Where are they going?

But there’s another question, one that goes to the core of what he’s all about, as Pinker tries to change the culture at Harvard: Is he the right guy for the job?

Something large was always at play for Pinker, who grew up in a Jewish community in Montreal. His kindergarten teacher told his mother he was the smartest kid she ever taught. His parents had bought a set of the World Book Encyclopedia—Pinker as a young boy devoured them. He loved science and math. His mother was a big reader, someone who knew everything. He asked her, at 17, “How do you get a job in a think tank?” She suggested he become a psychiatrist, but Pinker wasn’t interested in going to medical school. A college professor, then; this, they could agree on. They’d drive to McGill University together—Pinker lived at home all through college, “in the Canadian style,” he says—as his mother was working on a master’s in education. She brought home books on psycholinguistics that triggered an early interest—it was the era of Noam Chomsky getting famous in the revolution of cognitive science—and in his office in Cambridge, Pinker turns to look up at his books: “In fact, I have some on my shelves. I know exactly which ones they are.” Never mind that it was also the era of unemployed Ph.D.s; Pinker knew what he wanted. It took him all of three years to get a doctorate at Harvard in experimental psychology after graduating from McGill. He moves fast.

In his office, Pinker, on sabbatical, is informal, wearing a sweater and jeans, and the cowboy boots he’s known for that give him another inch. His famously spectacular curly hair has been trimmed down a bit, though it’s still spectacular. He’s smaller than I anticipated, and I realize that he’s generally so good-looking in photographs that I was expecting a commanding presence, but that’s not Pinker’s style. He’s eager, almost, to please—and a little edgy. He shifts often in his chair as we talk for three and a half hours—as if he can’t quite get comfortable; Pinker, 71, sprained a tendon in his hip two years ago, which ended his running, but he’s still an avid bicyclist. In his book How the Mind Works, he wrote: “Well into my procreating years I am, so far, voluntarily childless…ignoring the solemn imperative to spread my genes. By Darwinian standards I am a horrible mistake.… But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don’t like it, they can go jump in the lake.” His third wife, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, is a philosopher and novelist. He’s a professed liberal Democrat, though Pinker often gets accused of being a closet conservative. He takes on, with gusto, whatever I ask.

It quickly becomes obvious that the world comes alive for Pinker when it can be studied, understood, and explained. For a long time, he was mystified about why his father, who’d grown up dirt poor in Montreal after his parents emigrated from Poland in the 1920s, didn’t use his law degree, instead supporting his family by selling clothing in small Quebec towns; Pinker’s father himself never explained why. But then Pinker discovered the research of Thomas Sowell, a conservative economist and social theorist, on how ethnic groups often cultivate particular expertise over time and take it wherever they end up; for Pinker’s father, the Jewish cultural capital of commerce and finance—or, specifically, the garment industry—developed over centuries became the sure thing in order to move on from a childhood so destitute that a neighbor had to knit him mittens to survive a Montreal winter, since his parents couldn’t afford to buy them.

Sowell’s research, Pinker says, “actually helped me understand my own upbringing.” His research pushed against “the dominant mode of explanation that says the only differences among ethnic groups is how they’re treated from the outside, in terms of racism and prejudice. He argued that the traits within a culture matter as well.” With that, Pinker’s father wasn’t a victim of his circumstances, but part of a cultural tradition.

Pinker took his method of understanding, of needing to know and how he needed to know, into cognitive science. The Guardian once wrote of him, “No matter the topic of conversation, he will reach for a wider theory or study to explain it: the universality of facial expressions, the roots of physical attractiveness, the moral awe people feel for Noam Chomsky, why zebras have stripes.”

Pinker found more than a profession—he discovered a method. And the power of his books is in their insistence on going wherever the facts lead. After writing about language for academics, Pinker crossed over to a general audience with The Language Instinct in 1994, which made the case for the biological basis of language and hit big. In The Blank Slate, published in 2002, Pinker argued against a prevailing orthodoxy that we’re born without any innate characteristics, shaped entirely by environment and culture. Instead, he made the case that genetics plays a significant role in how our minds work and who we become. The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) detailed the long-term historical decline in violence, and Enlightenment Now (2018) made the case for reason and science creating a world of well-being and possibility foreign to earlier epochs. Those last two got Pinker a lot of heat for putting a sunny spin on the way things are now, especially among left-leaning thinkers who have called him a cheerleader for Western capitalism, blind to the inequalities it produces. And The Blank Slate has gotten Pinker criticized over the idea that biology is destiny, which leads into dangerous territory: racial differences, eugenics, the question of who gets to define human nature and why.

Biology as destiny is not what Pinker seems to be up to in The Blank Slate. In a nutshell, he argues that there are genetic differences between people, and that acknowledging this is not inherently a bad or dangerous thing; rather, it’s something to be understood. When he made this argument nearly 25 years ago, it was highly controversial. It still is.

In The Blank Slate, Pinker had three central beefs with academic orthodoxy. First: that human nature does not exist. Second: that our minds and bodies exist apart from each other. Third: that we are born innately good. Instead, he had come to believe many traits are universally human; that our minds are an information processing system plugged in to the hardware of our brains (“I think that intellectuals are just kind of squirrelly about that,” Pinker says. “They’re squeamish about the idea that the mind is just the activity of the brain.”); and that, while we are quite capable of doing good, it is not the underlying state of humanity. Pinker takes the basic position of philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who wrote that the condition of man is a war “of every man against every man.” In other words: The natural state of human beings is guided by self-interest and engaged in an ongoing struggle for power and resources.

Pinker says the book was not meant to stoke controversy, but explore what already existed. “I thought that the moral emotions had crept into the science, distorting the way scientists could do and report their research,” Pinker says. “And so the major goal of the book was to drive a wedge between them, so that if, for example, you thought that there were differences between men and women, that did not imply that you were against equal rights for women or condoning prejudice and harassment of women.”

Pinker’s frustration comes through in The Blank Slate—a sense that we’ve gotten human nature wrong. I read a passage to him from the book:

“The blank slate has also served as a sacred scripture for political and ethical beliefs. According to the doctrine, any differences we see among races, ethnic groups, sexes, and individuals come not from differences in their innate constitution, but from differences in their experiences. Change the experiences—by reforming parenting, education, the media, and social rewards—and you can change the person.”

I say to Pinker: “You’re close to take-no-prisoners territory there, don’t you think?”

“It’s provocative,” he says, and thinks for a moment. “I am after, just relentlessly after, clarity. I just want the idea to be as identifiable, visible, clear, understandable as possible.”

In the preface of The Blank Slate, Pinker quotes Anton Chekhov: “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.” I ask him whether that underpins what, when all is said and done, he believes he’s really about.

“I probably should have used that as an epigraph,” he says, pleased that we land on something so direct and simple. “If there’s a kind of moral passion behind my work, that would capture it.”

And now, Pinker says, The Blank Slate feels newly relevant:

“The idea that political and moral equality require sameness, which is one of the fallacies that I tried to expose, has come back with a vengeance in wokeness,” he says. And that winds him up a bit: “The idea that there is no such thing as biological sex, that sex is an arbitrary label assigned at birth, like a first name, or the bad biology that would say sex is a continuum—these are meant as ways to safeguard, but weren’t something I conceived of when writing The Blank Slate. If they were, I would have put them in there.”

“I am after, just relentlessly after, clarity,” says Pinker, shown here in his Cambridge home. / Photo by Ken Richardson

But why take this sort of thing on, given the risk?

The Blank Slate was much praised for opening up the nature-nurture debate—it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer, but it also garnered some now-wait-a-minute reviews that sometimes attacked Pinker for oversimplifying things. Louis Menand, author of The Metaphysical Club, a Pulitzer-winning intellectual and cultural history of late-19th- and early-20th-century America, reviewed the book skeptically in the New Yorker. Pinker’s villains, Menand wrote, were “social scientists, progressive educators, radical feminists, academic Marxists, liberal columnists, avant-garde arts types, government planners, and postmodernist relativists.” His heroes were cognitive scientists and ordinary folks. “I wish I could say that Pinker’s view of the world of ideas is more nuanced than this,” Menand wrote.

It isn’t just Pinker’s conclusions that have drawn fire—it’s his method. “By far the nastiest and most aggressive academic responses I have seen come from humanities professors when there are ideas from the sciences that they see as encroaching on their territories,” Pinker told the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019. “That’s when you get rage and withering condescension.” It’s not hard to find.

Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale, reviewed Enlightenment Now for the New Republic, arguing that Pinker’s conclusions were too narrow. “Behind this self-styled posture as a man of evidence and science,” Moyn tells me, “I think he’s a man of faith who won’t confront the evidence that doesn’t go his way. I think there’s so much that he’s sweeping under the carpet that it’s hard not to wonder what could lead him to extrapolate from a few data points to a big theory that’s so simple-minded.”

And Daniel Smail, a Harvard history professor, wrote a withering takedown of The Better Angels of Our Nature for an academic journal, dismissing Pinker’s optimism about civilization as naive. His verdict: “Better Angels is not a work of history. It is best understood as a work of moral and historical theology.”

Pinker, as is his way, calmly rejects the Moyn and Smail appraisals, though he admits this sort of thing makes him angry, and small wonder why: The accusations that Pinker is “a man of faith” or that he was writing “historical theology” strike at the most basic underpinning of his approach: Chasing the facts as he finds them, on the way to making his case for the way things really are. The charge, essentially, is that Pinker is guilty of his own my-side bias. “Those reactions of both Moyn and Smail, I think, are outrageously false,” Pinker says.

Pinker has his defenders in academia, too. David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas, calls Better Angels “extremely accurate. People have criticized that work, and I think unfairly, because it just violates all of our intuitions.” And even Moyn gives Pinker credit for “advancing the public conversation” in writing “accessibly” for a broad audience.

In other words, the debate over Pinker’s work has never really been settled—it’s ongoing, and it’s personal.

This isn’t for the faint-hearted, being a lightning rod, especially given the past decade’s atmosphere. In late 2017, for instance, during a panel discussion at Harvard about free speech, Pinker said, “Political correctness has done an enormous amount of harm in the sliver of the population that might be—I wouldn’t want to say ‘persuadable,’ but certainly whose affiliation might be up for grabs. The often highly literate, highly intelligent people who gravitate to the alt-right: Internet savvy, media savvy, who often are radicalized in that way.” Pinker was actually arguing that by shutting down debate, the left was pushing smart, contrarian people toward the alt-right—not because the alt-right was correct, but because it was the only place willing to engage certain questions.

Still, the right had a field day. Neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer ran a headline that read, in part: “Harvard Jew Professor Admits the Alt-Right Is Right About Everything.” The left hammered Pinker for giving ammunition to extremists, regardless of his intent.

And this is the pattern: Bad actors and dark thinkers have appropriated Pinker’s research and writing for their own ends—and Pinker has done little to stop them.

Charles Murray, coauthor of The Bell Curve in 1994, which linked IQ differences among races to genetics, has since cited The Blank Slate to support his views. Last year, Pinker appeared on the Aporia Podcast, an outlet that supports a revival of race science. In 2024, the Guardian reported that one of Aporia’s cofounders, Matthew Frost, once said that he’d been recruiting mainstream writers to give the podcast “legitimacy via association.” Pinker gave them an hour. After the Guardian chastised him for appearing on Aporia, Pinker told the newspaper he only agreed to be interviewed after the outlet “attacked” his views on human progress. He also said he believes it is vital to persuade audiences one disagrees with, which is why he appears in media with diverse political orientations.

Pinker likes to say he manages his “controversy portfolio carefully.” But that means the trouble he might get into—not the trouble he creates for others by lending his credibility to people like Murray, with whom he engages rather than dismisses. Late last year, he and Murray had a back-and-forth in the Wall Street Journal about Murray’s views on “terminal lucidity” proving the existence of the soul; Pinker, ever skeptical of faith, chastised Murray for reaching beyond the data. But the debate itself was the point: Whether Pinker won the argument didn’t really matter—Murray got the platform, a serious intellectual exchange with a Harvard cognitive scientist.

Nicolas Guilhot, a professor of intellectual history at the European University Institute, has long tracked Pinker’s thinking and writing (including a tough review of Enlightenment Now in 2018 for a diplomacy and foreign policy journal). I asked him whether Pinker bears any responsibility for how his work gets used.

“Of course he can’t prevent people from running with his ideas,” Guilhot told me in an email. “But he is at the very least cavalier about what he knows are the possible—and probable—implications of the views he peddles. This is all the more problematic because there are no progressive policies to point to that would latch on to his view of human nature, while there is a plethora of right-wing and reactionary agendas that are based on it. None of this is an accident, and Pinker is very much a participant of the recent restoration of a deterministic idea of ‘nature’ that has seamlessly connected neoliberal projects (of which he is definitely a representative) to reactionary ones.”

I put this to Pinker directly: You insist on following evidence wherever it leads. Do you take any responsibility for who has followed your work—and where they’ve taken it?

“If I have been misleading or unclear in a way that would egg on deplorable actors, I would take responsibility for that,” Pinker says. “But if I express things perfectly clearly—there’s a huge world out there. I can’t take responsibility for how some random person out on Twitter interprets a paper or an interview if there’s no content in the interview that would actually egg on or encourage them. And I can’t boycott every forum whose members hold some opinion that some third party finds repugnant.”

Then, of course, there is Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein collected heavyweight intellectuals, and in terms of funding and gifts seemed to have a particular affinity for Harvard. Pinker attended a few gatherings where he was present, but claims he never liked Epstein.

In 2008, Pinker’s friend and Harvard colleague Alan Dershowitz defended Epstein, who had been charged with soliciting prostitution from a minor. Dershowitz had consulted Pinker for help interpreting the wording of a statute concerning the use of the mail to solicit minors to engage in prostitution or sexual activity. For that crime, Epstein pleaded guilty and served 13 months in prison.

Pinker says he doesn’t blame Dershowitz for defending Epstein, nor does he believe he did anything wrong by helping interpret the law. “I believe in the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of legal representation of the accused,” Pinker says. “If I had known then what I know now about the extent of Epstein’s crimes, and that it would be used in his defense, I might have second thoughts.”

But Pinker got an early clue about just who Epstein was, and it didn’t stop him from showing up.

In the Epstein document trove released by the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 430 results mention Pinker—often emails about events Epstein buddies John Brockman, Pinker’s literary agent, and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss wanted Pinker to attend (many emails are included several times). The only one from Pinker himself—to an Epstein assistant in March 2012, four years after the conviction—said he’d be “delighted to meet with him” when Epstein visited Harvard. “I probably shouldn’t have said yes,” Pinker says now, “but I was being polite—he was a donor to Harvard.” (Pinker says they didn’t ultimately meet up.)

In 2014, as part of a project he was working on, Krauss invited Pinker to help organize a conference at Arizona State University on the origins of violence after the publication of Better Angels. At the end of the event, Krauss asked Pinker to allow Epstein to come say hello, Pinker says. Someone snapped a picture, which now lives online.

“I would not have agreed to do anything that was associated with Epstein or branded with him,” Pinker says. “If I was perhaps more assertive, maybe less polite and Canadian, when Krauss said, ‘Will you let Epstein come over to your table and sit down with you?’ I could have said no. Probably I should have said no. I didn’t say no.” He also didn’t say no to organizing a conference largely funded by Epstein.

Pinker dismisses criticism of his connections as guilt by association—whether it’s Murray or Epstein, he insists that proximity isn’t endorsement. But the pattern is visible: years of polite yeses, a willingness to lend his credibility to people and platforms that most academics would avoid. At some point, the accumulation starts to speak for itself.

Which brings us back to Harvard—and whether Pinker is the right person to lead the university out of its current trouble.

Pinker, part of the Council on Academic Freedom that has been shaping policies at Harvard, has both critics and defenders in the world of academia. / Photo by Ken Richardson

The most important piece that Pinker has written about Harvard—and, really, higher education in general—was “Harvard Derangement Syndrome” last year for the New York Times, as the Trump administration’s threats on funding and problems within the university coalesced. It was a cry for sanity and a path forward. He prefaced it with: “I’m hardly an apologist for my employer when I say that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged.”

Pinker pointed out that he had written “The Trouble With Harvard” for the New Republic back in 2014, which called for an admissions policy based on merit and took on the idea that professors should be engaged in their students’ self-discovery: “Perhaps I am emblematic of everything that’s wrong with elite American education, but I have no idea how to get students to build a self or become a soul.” In 2023, he wrote a five-point plan for the Globe on how Harvard could save itself, and “How I Wish Harvard Taught Students to Talk About Israel,” the piece that first caught my eye, along with others on problems at the school.

In “Harvard Derangement Syndrome,” Pinker made the case for proportionality. Yes, Harvard has serious problems—he’d been saying so for years. The appropriate treatment, Pinker argued, was to diagnose which parts need which remedies—not to “cut its carotid and watch it bleed out,” as he believed Trump and his allies were attempting to do. The school’s core mission was at risk, Pinker argued: If there’s fear of asking certain questions, then research is crippled, just as it would be by the government slashing funds to conduct it. And that funding is not a privilege for Harvard, but necessary to help us advance our understanding in any number of big ways.

Pinker ended his piece with a sort of call to arms, quoting physicist David Deutsch: “Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.” To cripple the institutions that acquire and transmit knowledge, Pinker wrote, “is a tragic blunder and a crime against future generations.”

But writing op-eds is one thing. Could Pinker actually change anything?

In 2023, Pinker and five copresidents, along with dozens of other Harvard faculty, formed the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, made up now of some 200 members, which regularly challenges university policies and pushes for change. For Pinker and others on the Council, evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven essentially getting driven out of Harvard as a lecturer was a turning point—she had said in an interview in 2021 that the biological definitions of male and female are essential to science, then was summarily accused of transphobia, the fallout of which continued into 2023. “That’s kind of what DEI officers are empowered to do,” Pinker says: “The fact is, there is very little racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia on modern university campuses, especially in a Northeastern elite university like Harvard. So there’s actually nothing to root out—they’re going to have to be increasingly ingenious and energetic in interpreting things as transphobic so that they’ve got something to do.” Hooven had been Pinker’s teaching assistant as a graduate student, and he ended up bringing her back as an associate in his lab at Harvard.

A week before Christmas in 2023, two members of the Harvard Corporation, Paul Finnegan and Tracy Palandjian, asked members of the Council to join them for a private dinner at Bar Enza in Cambridge. It was a shocking invite: The Corporation runs Harvard, and they’re notoriously secretive. “It’s almost like the Politburo-watchers in the era of the Soviet Union,” Pinker says. “But this was at the moment of the university’s deepest crisis.” Then-president Claudine Gay was getting hammered for her handling of demonstrations over the October 7 Hamas attacks on Jews in Israel; she had testified before Congress two weeks earlier, and in early January, she would resign. “In a rare moment of openness, the Corporation was actually soliciting some faculty opinions,” Pinker says. Like a principal calling the mouthiest students down to the office to ask: How do I run this place?

The meeting was cordial, but Pinker and three other Council members were direct: “Large sectors of the country hold Harvard in contempt,” Pinker says he told Finnegan and Palandjian. “This is the Corporation’s problem.”

The meeting warranted an article in the New York Times a couple of days later, which didn’t please the Corporation; Pinker says the Council didn’t reach out to the paper. But he didn’t mind the exposure, writing to his Council colleagues (and sharing the emails with me): “They’re a legitimate target of reporting by the national media—the days when they could run Harvard like a private blue-blood Bostonian club are gone.” And this: “The public has a legitimate interest in knowing what led to this mess, and the Corporation is part of the story. To be honest, they screwed up in picking Claudine, they probably screwed up in keeping her, they screwed up in their plagiarism investigation [of her], including threatening the New York Post with a defamation lawsuit, and they screwed up in their public pronouncements.”

It was clearly go time, with Pinker leading the charge. His involvement and directness have given other faculty the courage to take public stands. Eric Maskin, the Nobel-winning economist and a copresident of the Council, puts it this way: “Steve has been effective within the Harvard community in emboldening people who were inclined in that direction not to shut up.” An interesting admission: that a Nobel laureate would think twice about the risk before speaking out.

The Council had only the one direct meeting with the Corporation. But they were just getting started. Pinker and former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier kept writing occasional opinion pieces and worked back channels, especially through private conversations with Alan Garber, the president who replaced Gay; he proved much more open to their initiatives. The Council pushed for applicants to faculty jobs in arts and sciences to no longer be required to write diversity statements, “which pretty clearly,” Pinker says, “eliminated anyone who isn’t a woke ideologue or a skilled liar.” The Council also pushed for institutional neutrality on issues that don’t directly affect the university, given how Harvard got into trouble, in particular, for Gay’s waffling rhetoric on demonstrations over the war in Gaza.

Both initiatives were adopted by Harvard.

Within Garber’s first few months as interim president after Gay resigned, he formed a working group on open inquiry and constructive dialogue at Harvard. It’s impossible to say how much the Council’s pressure—the op-eds, the behind-the-scenes meetings with Garber—got the ball rolling, but the working group’s report that October was clear in concluding that the lack of open inquiry is a crisis for higher education.

For Harvard to officially admit that, Flier says, is a big deal, and he is enthused: “Every time I write an article or an op-ed, I wonder ‘Will someone try to cancel me or destroy me now?’” Flier says. “That is less common today because there’s more awareness of this and there’s more opposition to it, and the people who used to do it are more afraid of doing it now. That is a huge change. And unless you lived through it, you wouldn’t see the change.”

Pinker is more cautiously optimistic. “I see green shoots,” he says. In his “Harvard Derangement Syndrome” piece, Pinker wrote, “Young people are shaped by peers more than most people realize.… In many cases, students’ politics are no more attributable to indoctrination by professors than are their green hair and pierced septums.” What can you do about that? Yet at least both the Corporation and Garber are speaking the Council’s language now, in public statements on academic freedom when Garber’s tenure was extended beyond 2027. “I think he was always on board,” Pinker says, “but he would not have prioritized it if not for our pressure.”

The Council will keep looking into graduate student education on academic freedom, Pinker says (given that many undergrads spend more time being taught by grad students than professors), and intellectual diversity of the faculty (affirmative action for conservatives, as Pinker half-jokingly puts it). They also plan to study—per Pinker’s obsession with data—how universities actually work. “Universities are surprisingly ignorant of how universities work,” he says. Pinker insists he’s gotten no pushback at Harvard for any of his public criticisms, or his push now for change.

But the greatest threat to Harvard, Pinker says, is from the outside: “that the Trump administration will attempt to cripple it using every means at its disposal. That with a compliant Supreme Court, it may not even matter if Harvard has the law on its side, which I think it does.”

It’s tough to predict where that will end, or how open to different points of view the university will really become. But something does feel different. The university is on notice. Pinker and the Council will keep pushing—as if taking a page from the wokeness playbook in keeping everybody on high alert. We’re watching.

Pinker is convinced he’s pursuing the truth as he finds it. His method has made him a star. It’s also left a trail of complications.

As always, Pinker is convinced he’s pursuing the truth as he finds it. His method has made him a star. It’s also left a trail of complications—the associations, the bad actors who cite his work, the questions about what doors he’s opened and for whom.

Whether that makes him the right person to lead Harvard out of its current troubles is a question the university will have to answer for itself. Pinker, for his part, shows no signs of slowing down. He carries on as if he is certain his work and beliefs deserve whatever airing he decides to give them.

It brings to mind the line Pinker quotes in The Blank Slate, from Chekhov: “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.”

The question now is whether Pinker applies that same scrutiny to himself and the way he operates. Harvard may be waiting on the answer.

This article was first published in the print edition of the April 2026 issue, with the headline,“Man of Reason.”

Do I Have to Run the Boston Marathon to Be a Real Bostonian?

Simone Migliori — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:00:14 +0000

Illustration by Dale Stephanos

Welcome to “The Salty Cod,” a monthly column in which humorist Steve Calechman grapples with uniquely New England dilemmas.

God, I hope not, because I screwed up big time. I grew up on the course, right at the top of Heartbreak Hill, and watched pretty much every race during my childhood, and nothing, not the chance to eat a lot of pasta or run by my own house, ever made me want to do it. Then again, not everyone who grows up in Winthrop becomes a pilot.

And that’s fine. We don’t have to do or like all sports. And marathons, especially, are nothing to trifle with. You can’t just show up at the starting line on a whim. You gotta run a lot. You gotta run outside in January. And you never hit a downhill and get to coast for a mile. It really is all you.

Some of us are happy to be on the sidelines and remind you of just that. Think about it, runners. I know you feel you’ve done something medal- and massage-worthy at the end, and maybe you have. But without the crowds, that Monday is just 26.2 miles on concrete. Are all the splits and intervals and lost toenails still worth it? Now think about what those fans are going through. Standing—most likely sitting—for three, four hours, cheering “You got it!” over and over and over again, meaning it each and every time, even making the effort to occasionally decipher your shirt in order to say, “You got it, Mike!”—all while not spilling a drop of their chili. Sometimes it’s also drizzling, maybe a touch chilly, and they still don’t quit. Who’s the marathoner now?

We all are. Is it the classic definition of one? No. But there are a lot of ways to be part of something. Sometimes it’s hoofing it. Sometimes it’s yelling supportive stuff at people we don’t know. But the thing we have in common is that we both willingly keep coming back because it makes us feel good. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t. “It’s not rocket science,” says Jeff Brown, psychologist for the Boston Marathon’s medical team and author of The Runner’s Brain.

It’s the basis for most traditions and rituals, and it’s a way to make something feel like ours. So no, you don’t have to run to be a part of the marathon. Now, a question for you, readers. What’s one of your traditions that could only happen here, one you wouldn’t miss for all the pasta in the world?

Got a question for the Salty Cod? Send it to editor@bostonmagazine.com.

Previously: Should Actual Bostonians Ever Go to Cheers, Faneuil Hall, or Mike’s Pastry?

This article was first published in the print edition of the April 2026 issue, with the headline,“Do I Have to Run the Boston Marathon to be a Real Bostonian?”

The Engagement Ring Is Having an Identity Crisis

Simone Migliori — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 05:00:07 +0000

Photo illustration by Benjamen Purvis / Getty Images

The old script went like this: A lovestruck fellow would save his paycheck—for months, maybe years—to afford an engagement ring. Or a lucky heir would receive a rare bauble handed down across generations, the same one that glittered at a great-grandmother’s cocktail party.

These were natural diamonds: formed more than a hundred miles beneath the Earth’s surface under intense pressure and heat over billions of years, no two exactly alike, and eventually gleaming behind glass in jewelry cases. Romantic, rare, and—let’s be honest—ruthlessly expensive.

But when Spencer’s Mikaela Smith got engaged, she had something else in mind: a lab-grown diamond. Produced in a controlled setting with less labor and less environmental disruption, the stone has the same chemical and physical properties as a mined diamond, at just a fraction of the cost, and even the most experienced jeweler can’t tell the difference by sight alone.

A salon manager planning a June wedding at the Beauport Hotel in Gloucester, Smith says price was the primary driver for her and her fiancé, a high school English teacher. “We talked about it and just looked at the cost,” she says. “We could get a lot more for the value with a lab diamond.”

Smith worked with Wright Jewelry & Design Company in Hudson to customize a 2-carat, oval lab-grown diamond with side stones. The ring cost around $7,000, she says—far less than a comparable natural version. “I didn’t really care about the heirloom aspect,” Smith says. “What mattered was how it looked. And it was really cool to support a local business and get a custom design.”

A $7,000 stone that passes for a $70,000 one would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Today, it’s transforming the diamond industry, with even local jewelers at the highest end selling pieces made with lab-grown stones. “Lab-grown diamonds tend to resonate because they allow [buyers] to invest in something that’s still certified and has a quality design,” says Alyson Iarrusso, who runs New England–based Cove Fine Jewelry. “It’s really gone from ‘What can I afford?’ to ‘What do I want?’” Which, if you think about it, is a pretty big shift in a business that has always depended on the distance between those two questions.

For many Boston couples, lab-grown is more than just a budget-friendly choice: It’s a way to signal values—sustainability, ethical sourcing, smart spending. As Iarrusso puts it: “People buy lab-grown and are proud: They love the sustainability and the accessibility, and nobody is hiding it.”

Woburn’s Melissa Gutierrez Cronin sought out a lab-grown stone from the South End’s Laura Preshong, known for eco-friendly rings. “I had ethical concerns related to mining,” Cronin says. “We also really like the store we bought it at: It’s a small business, women-owned, and they only sell ethically sourced diamonds. That’s so important to me.”

Cronin says she’s never been asked about her ring’s pedigree. In Boston, “Nobody asks you what kind of stone you have. Even if they did, I wouldn’t mind telling them it’s a lab-grown diamond.” A California native, she’s noticed something about her adopted city: “I think people here are very social-justice-oriented, which is nice.”

Westford’s Kayla Prange—whose 3-carat oval-cut ring from Andover’s Melanie Casey cost just over $5,000—feels similarly. “It’s so freeing to just let go of the whole idea of natural diamonds and get what makes more logical sense,” she says—both from a financial and sustainability perspective. Prange did have to explain the lab-grown concept to a few befuddled family members, but she wasn’t losing any sleep over it. “It’s no surprise that the majority of diamond mines are located in places where people have historically been severely exploited,” she says.

But here’s what the diamond industry would rather you not think too hard about: When a whole generation shrugs off the mythology that made diamonds valuable—the scarcity, the sacrifice, the heirloom permanence—the disruption isn’t the stone. It’s the shrug itself.

You’re not going to find a lab-grown diamond at an antique jewelry store, “but that doesn’t make them less meaningful.”

So the buyers are on board. But what about the people who actually sell the things? Hannah Florman, a custom jeweler with a Newbury Street boutique, sees customers of two schools of thought walk into her store. “I see a lot of couples who are in the health and science fields who are genuinely excited and interested in the lab-grown diamond concept, and also those who are eco-conscious,” she says.

On the other hand, she’s worked with Boston clients concerned about the heirloom quality of their purchase. Natural diamonds, she notes, tend to retain long-term value because they’re tied to the whims of mining and availability. Lab-grown diamonds, which can be produced readily as literal carbon copies, don’t command the same scarcity-driven prices. You’re not going to find a lab-grown diamond at an antique jewelry store, “but that doesn’t make them less meaningful,” Florman says. “It just means they’re better understood as deeply personal objects rather than investments.”

That distinction—personal object versus investment—is the fault line running through every jewelry store in the region.

Anto Aboyan, co-owner of Adamas Fine Jewelry, a luxury jeweler in Newton, admits he was initially skeptical of the trend. Over three decades in the business, Adamas has catered largely to deep-pocketed clients, and natural diamonds accounted for most of the business’s sales. “In the beginning, I really felt that it’s going to be negative. But it really hasn’t been a negative: This is another avenue of selling engagement rings to a certain consumer who generally couldn’t afford a $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 diamond,” he says.

His sister and business partner, Veronica Sagherian, believes the trend is ushering in a more egalitarian era for the jewelry industry. “It’s basically opened up the opportunity for a younger, less affluent person to be able to afford something that would normally be only for a luxury market,” she says.

Natural stones continue to make up about 75 percent of their business, Aboyan estimates. The remaining 25 percent comes from buyers requesting lab-grown diamonds, often in larger sizes or elongated cuts. “If the consumer is asking for lab-grown, then we’ll be in the business of delivering lab-grown,” Aboyan says. “If the [demand] changes and 90 percent want lab, we’ll supply 90 percent lab.”

Boston Diamond Company, meanwhile, began carrying lab-grown diamonds about three years ago, but only after extensive vetting. Founder and CEO Stephanie Binder’s initial hesitation stemmed from quality concerns: Many lab grown diamonds are mass-produced and, despite strong certificate reports, at first weren’t up to the company’s standards. Certificates give baseline metrics like color, cut, clarity, and carat, the gemologist says. “But you can’t grade things like light, scintillation, brilliance, if it has haze or milky tones.”

Today, Binder estimates that about 90 percent of her clients choose lab-grown diamonds, and she believes they’ll be fully normalized within five years. In Boston, “We’re in a newer luxury market where consumers are no longer impressed by buzzwords,” she says. “They want to understand what they’re buying, how it performs, how it’s set, and how it will last over time.”

In other words, Boston’s jewelers say they haven’t been disrupted so much as recalibrated. The question, then, isn’t whether they can survive the lab-grown revolution; it’s whether the thing they used to sell—not the stone, but the story around it—can make it through.

Pull back a bit, and the bigger picture is hard to ignore. In 2015, lab-grown diamonds accounted for one percent of the overall market; in 2024, they accounted for 20 percent and have caused natural-stone prices to drop as demand shrinks. They’ve also upended a long-standing social ecosystem built on price, status, and meaning. In the past, “For a long time, the size of the diamond signaled what someone spent,” Iarrusso says. “Lab-grown diamonds are changing that equation.”

And while many of the Boston buyers in this story are proud, open, and even eager to sing their ring’s lab-grown status from the rooftops, not everyone is. One local jeweler who often works with clients in swanky enclaves like Palm Beach describes a quieter dynamic: buyers who choose lab-grown stones discreetly, especially in traditional or luxury-oriented circles. “I’ll hear, ‘I only want natural,’” says another local jeweler. “But then, privately, they’ll say, ‘I do want that. Can you create that for me? Nobody needs to know.’”

Then there are those who still gravitate toward natural diamonds—and don’t apologize for it. When Emily Baer was on the cusp of getting engaged, she says her fiancé, real estate agent Hans Nagrath, was firmly in the natural camp. “He was more in the heirloom, traditional, in-the-family-forever, work-of-art type mindset,” says Baer, a therapist and yoga instructor.

While Baer was initially indifferent to what type of stone her fiancé chose, she says her ring—a three-pronged teardrop stunner with a gold band from Boston Diamond Company—is perfect. “I trusted him with the design, and it’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s simple and timeless, and that’s where the heirloom piece ties into it.”

Beverly’s Noelle Guerin, meanwhile, went the other direction, eventually. When the hospitality and lifestyle marketing professional got married 23 years ago, she was proud to sport a natural diamond. But after it popped out of its setting on Thanksgiving last year and required replacement, she did some research: “I’d never considered lab until I did some digging and learned more about them: They’re ethically sourced, more affordable, and with great clarity,” she says.

Despite its lab-grown status, Guerin still considers her new ring an heirloom and plans to pass it on to her daughter someday. After all, it’s about the symbolism, not the stone. “To me, the ring signifies a beautiful marriage that I feel blessed to have and the journey to get there. That’s where the importance lies. I think there’s a misconception that lab-grown isn’t ‘real’ and therefore can’t be an heirloom,” she says.

And maybe that’s the real disruption—not that lab-grown diamonds exist, but that they’ve made the whole question of “real” beside the point. The scarcity is gone. The high cost is optional. The mythology has been politely yet firmly shrugged off. What’s left is just the ring on your finger and whatever story you decide it tells. For a lot of Bostonians, that’s turned out to be enough.

This article was first published in the print edition of the April 2026 issue, with the headline,“Can You Tell the Difference.”

Is the Massachusetts Economy About to Get Wrecked?

Simone Migliori — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:15:17 +0000

Illustration by Comrade

Here’s the thing about Cape Cod potato chips: They were always about much more than the chips. They were about that low-slung building in Hyannis where, on rainy days, you’d take the kids to press their faces against Plexiglas and watch the chips tumble down the line. And at the end, somebody handed you a free bag, still warm.

Two brothers started the company in 1980 and named it for the place itself, which, in retrospect, was either a stroke of genius or a terrible idea, because once you name something “Cape Cod,” you are making a promise about where it belongs. The brand became the Cape in the same way Sam Adams is Boston or Ben & Jerry’s is Vermont. Which is why what happened next really stings. In time, the brothers sold the company. It got sold again. Eventually Campbell’s—the soup people—bought its parent company in 2017 and quietly moved almost all production to Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. By the end, the Hyannis factory was making just 4 percent of the chips—the place that gave them their name now basically a souvenir of itself.

This month, Campbell’s will shut it down. Forty-nine jobs will be gone. The chips will still be in nearly every American supermarket—they just won’t be made on Cape Cod by Cape Codders. Instead, the building will go dark. And another small piece of Massachusetts’ economic soul will pack up and leave.

Photo by CNMages/Alamy

It was hardly a surprise. The parade of departures in Massachusetts has become almost routine. New Hampshire politicians spent last year’s holiday season gloating over their latest gifts: business transplants like the 250 employees of power equipment manager SynQor, formerly of Boxborough, and security and healthcare technology company Analogic, gone from Peabody with 500 jobs in tow. Massachusetts’ Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act tracker reported an unusually high toll in January: 905 employees canned at 10 companies, from CRRC (the once-touted Chinese subway-car manufacturer whose woes have stalled MBTA service) and biotech stalwarts Takeda and Thermo Fisher to Zipcar—born in Cambridge in 2000, the kind of startup that Massachusetts used to mint and hold onto—and soup-and-sandwich staple Panera.

Other large layoffs can be traced back to last year. Sarepta Therapeutics slashed nearly 500 Massachusetts jobs, pharmaceutical giant GSK moved operations from Cambridge to Pennsylvania, and Symbotic, a Wilmington-based AI robotics firm—exactly the type of company Massachusetts is supposed to be incubating—cut 400 workers from its Andover facility. In December, Yankee Candle—the South Deerfield icon that built a tourist empire on scented wax—saw its parent company slash 900 jobs and shutter stores nationwide. Another Massachusetts original dramatically downsized.

And it’s not just companies leaving. Some aren’t bothering to come here in the first place. German biotech firm Repairon GmbH recently chose Providence over Boston for its first U.S. headquarters—picking Rhode Island over the ecosystem we’ve spent decades building and signaling that even our life-sciences pipeline is struggling to compete with cheaper, hungrier neighbors. HubSpot cofounder Brian Halligan captured the mood on X in January with a post that went viral in Boston tech circles: “I’m starting to worry about Massachusetts.” He should be.

We know companies are leaving. But so are the people. U.S. Census Bureau data shows 33,340 more residents left the state than came in during the year ending last July, and leading the exodus was young adults who in better times would be starting families and companies here. A Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll last fall also found nearly a third of respondents had considered leaving Massachusetts in the year prior over the high cost of living. One in three. Think about that at your next dinner party: Someone at the table is probably looking at Zillow listings in North Carolina.

Then there’s the forecast nobody wanted to hear. Boston University finance professor Mark Williams published a study last year that should have been a five-alarm fire: His analysis of the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes, immigration crackdown, and proposed cuts in medical and scientific research funding concluded that Massachusetts’ core industries would be “disproportionately harmed” by “shrinking commerce, growth, tax revenue and labor supply.” The numbers showed that higher tariffs alone could cut economic growth here by $12.8 billion, costing the state $1 billion in lost tax revenue and close to 80,000 jobs. That’s roughly double the population of Salem headed for the unemployment line.

In private briefings with local business executives and during interviews for this story, Williams updated his forecast to reflect what’s actually happening. Trump’s policies have become “a giant wrecking ball,” he says, coming on top of preexisting problems, including an aging population, declining fertility rates, and relentless cost pressures on childcare, healthcare, energy, and housing.

His prediction: Massachusetts “could head into recession by Q3 2026”—and Democrats winning the midterms won’t save us. Neither will Trump’s departure in 2029. “It will require multiple years after Trump is out of office for the state to regain its financial footing,” Williams says.

The question isn’t whether Massachusetts is in trouble. It’s whether anyone in charge has a plan.

Illustration by Benjamen Purvis

The wrecking ball has been busy.

In 2023, President Joe Biden’s administration handed Massachusetts a gift: ARPA-H’s Investor Catalyst Hub, one of three regional healthcare innovations hubs across the country. Governor Maura Healey called it “a huge win.” In its first year, the program pumped nearly $300 million into the state’s network of biomedical companies and nonprofits. It felt, for a moment, like the future arriving on time.

Then, in late January, an ARPA-H official notified the hub’s management firm of the federal government’s intent to terminate the agreement “in large part or in full.” Fifty-nine jobs at the hub faced elimination. But the real damage would extend to every company, hospital, and research organization connected to its pipeline—projects focused on cancer surgery, providing hospital-level care to rural areas, and lymphatic disease treatment. All of it at risk of vanishing.

The response has been swift yet so far futile. The written stop-work order, sent January 30 by ARPA-H Agreements Officer Steven Piggott, included a subject line reading “Stop Work and Termination,” its language directing the hub’s management firm to prepare a termination settlement proposal. After initial lawmaker pushback, an ARPA-H official called the closure plans “false,” insisting the agency was merely evaluating vendors, not closing any of the three hubs. But that wasn’t enough for lawmakers. U.S. Representative Lori Trahan wrote a letter to Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy—signed by fellow Congressional delegation members Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Jake Auchincloss, Seth Moulton, Richard Neal, and Stephen Lynch—calling the termination “a profound mistake and a blatant waste of taxpayer dollars” and demanding a Congressional briefing. Healey urged Trump to “immediately reverse this decision,” and while the feds announced some new funding for local researchers in early March, the future of the Investor Catalyst Hub remains in doubt.

ARPA-H is just the tip of the iceberg. A midwinter MassInc/Globe poll of scientists receiving NIH funding confirmed the worst: A third said their grant program had been terminated or the application process canceled; 42 percent have lost researchers to other countries; 31 percent have had potential hires reject their institution’s offers over immigration concerns; and 72 percent have had research projects delayed or canceled.

UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, a major economic driver for central Massachusetts, laid off or furloughed about 200 employees in the wake of federal funding cuts last spring; by summer, outgoing Chancellor Michael Collins was predicting close to $100 million more in cuts. Without drastic changes, we’ll “lose a generation of scientists,” Collins has said. Tim Murray, the former lieutenant governor who now runs the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, sees the damage radiating outward to local suppliers, ancillary businesses, and nonprofits. “We’re very concerned about the long-term impact,” he says.

And then the Trump administration said the quiet part out loud. During a visit to the state that receives more of his agency’s funding per capita than any other, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya personally delivered a warning: Red states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Alabama deserve more of the pie. “I don’t see a future with Massachusetts not having support,” he told the Globe in December. “But I would love to see that kind of success spread all across the country.” Translation: Much of what you have is going to be redistributed, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

A month later, the federal Office of Management and Budget, headed by Russell Vought, piled on, ordering NIH and most other federal agencies to report all funding sent to a list of Democrat-led states—including Massachusetts—“in order to facilitate efforts to reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.” And the assault extends beyond research. The Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” could strip state healthcare coverage from 300,000 Massachusetts residents and cost the state $3.3 billion.

Massachusetts isn’t the only blue state in the federal government’s crosshairs. But we’ve done little, if anything, to avoid the line of fire. From the scorched-earth rhetoric of our Congressional delegation (Senator Warren: Trump has the “most corrupt administration in our lifetime”) to Healey’s broadsides (“We have a president who throws temper tantrums like a two-year-old. No disrespect to two-year-olds”) to Mayor Michelle Wu’s salvos (“a tyrant desperate for the respect he will never earn”), Massachusetts politicians have sharp-elbowed their way to the forefront of the anti-Trump movement. On target and in tune with local voters? Perhaps. But when federal funding is the leverage and the other side has shown it will use it punitively, political pugilism has a cost. Local chambers of commerce have joined forces with their red-state counterparts in the Business for Federal Research Funding Coalition—a bipartisan network of more than 80 business groups across 36 states—trying to make the case through less inflammatory channels. “It’s hard for businesses in blue states to be heard on this issue,” Greg Reibman of the Charles River Regional Chamber told the Globe in May of last year. “By being part of a coalition from across the nation, we hope our concerns will transcend the partisan divide.”

Good luck with that. A more likely preview of what’s coming is Moderna: The Cambridge biotech flagship of COVID-19 vaccine fame saw its stock crater after the FDA issued a rare refusal to even review the company’s new mRNA flu vaccine—a decision widely attributed to the agency’s top vaccine regulator, an RFK Jr. appointee. The agency reversed itself a week later, but the damage was done. The message to every biotech company in Cambridge was that the rules can change overnight—and that being in Massachusetts makes you a target.

The external assault is real, deliberate, and unprecedented. But it landed on a patient that was already sick.

Here’s what few people want to admit: It’s not one crisis. It’s at least three. Higher education, healthcare, and biotech—the three bedrocks Massachusetts has been telling itself make it unsinkable—are all unraveling at the same time. And because they’re interlocking, each one accelerates the collapse of the others. Universities train the talent. Hospitals employ it. Biotech commercializes it. Lose one pillar, and you have a problem. Lose all three at once, and you don’t have a downturn. You have a structural collapse.

Start with higher education, which has seen a dozen colleges close or merge over the past decade, from the Boston Conservatory in 2016 to Eastern Nazarene College last year—one of the nation’s worst attrition rates. Moody’s issued a negative fiscal 2026 outlook for higher ed nationally, citing caps on federal student loans, cuts in research grants, and a projected decline in high school graduates. Looming over it all: artificial intelligence advances that threaten to render parts of the traditional college model obsolete. National enrollment dropped 15 percent from 2010 to 2021. “Twenty to twenty-five percent of all colleges are going to close,” says Brandeis University president Arthur Levine. “If federal cuts continue, it’s going to be a huge economic problem for Massachusetts. If another nation were doing to us what we’re doing to ourselves, we would declare it an act of war.”

And the customers who might have saved us are going elsewhere. A generation of high school seniors who once dreamed of New England campuses are choosing Sun Belt schools—drawn by lower tuition, warmer climates, and job markets that don’t feel like a gamble. The ones who do want to come here increasingly can’t justify the cost: A four-year degree at a private Massachusetts university can reach $400,000 before a student earns a dollar. Some institutions are already experimenting with three-year degree programs to stanch the bleeding, compressing the model in ways that cut a full year of tuition revenue—and a full year of the local economic activity that comes with it. If that’s the next iteration of higher education, what comes after it is anyone’s guess. But it almost certainly involves fewer students, fewer professors, and fewer dollars flowing through Massachusetts.

The truth is that the pipeline is already collapsing. At UMass Chan, Ph.D. admissions plummeted from 73 to 13 in a single year. Harvard is cutting science Ph.D. enrollment in half. Boston University has paused admissions in six fields entirely. The students who would have become the next generation of researchers aren’t just going elsewhere—in some cases, the programs that would have trained them no longer exist. And the researchers who are already here are being recruited away. Australia’s Monash University has invested $10 million to lure more than a dozen American academics from Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, and Cornell—offering stable funding and academic freedom that Washington, DC, is no longer willing to guarantee.

Our hospitals aren’t faring much better. Only six of the state’s nearly two dozen healthcare systems boasted positive operating budgets last year; the median operating margin for acute care hospitals dropped to negative 2 percent. Mass General Brigham, the state’s largest and wealthiest system, underwent hundreds of layoffs last year in an attempt to close a $250 million budget gap. UMass Memorial Health, facing an $86 million operating loss in the first half of fiscal year 2025 alone, shuttered a behavioral health program, a teen substance abuse treatment center, and two primary care clinics. “It’s going to get ugly the next three years,” UMass Memorial CEO Eric Dickson told the Globe in December. “I mean, I should have retired last year.” At Boston Medical Center, where more than 40 percent of patients are on Medicaid, an ER physician told the Globe she’s watching “the seams of our healthcare system come apart.” And the Steward Health Care collapse—which killed Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center—is still sending shockwaves through the system. The Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid cuts, meanwhile, could strip another $424 million a year from Massachusetts hospitals—with the hardest hit falling on safety-net facilities where uninsured and Medicaid patients are most concentrated, and where experts warn the cuts could trigger bankruptcies.

But if our long-running eds-and-meds boom is cracking, at least we have biotech—the golden goose, epitomized by the gleaming offices and labs that transformed Kendall Square from a string of parking lots to the global epicenter of cutting-edge research. Right?

Not so much. “We’ve been on the most incredible run in the biotech community since 2010, but like most industries, we are seeing a pullback, a retrenchment,” says state Senator Barry Finegold, chair of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. “We’ve never had as much open lab space.” While innovators keep cranking out new products, last year’s 14 percent growth in new drug development nationwide still lags well behind China’s 37 percent increase—and Massachusetts, the industry’s center of gravity, is feeling the squeeze. According to a recent MassBio report, the state’s share of national venture capital dropped by 2 percent, and the number of funded companies slipped by 13 percent. And if it isn’t New Hampshire luring our golden geese away, it’s Rhode Island, spending millions through initiatives like the state’s Life Science Hub to siphon our companies and persuade new ones to settle there instead of here.

What about the clean energy sector, another focus of investment in the state budget? Surely that will pick up the slack? Not likely, given the Trump administration’s open hostility to alternative energy development. “Nobody has pockets like the federal government,” notes Mark Melnik, director of Economic and Public Policy Research at the UMass Donahue Institute. “Any kinds of investments in offshore wind or solar, so much of that needs to have some kind of relationship to where the feds see the economy going.”

“This is probably the most precarious I can recall the Massachusetts economy being,” Melnik adds. And while the professional and executive classes are feeling extraordinary heat, broad swaths of the rest of the population already seem to be cooked.

United states of America Map Isolated 3d Render Illustration

The macro numbers tell one story. Living here tells another. The issue that tops every poll of citizen concerns is housing, and the gridlock plaguing the local real estate market “feels like the perfect storm,” says Michael Carucci, the Massachusetts executive vice president for real estate brokerage Serhant. The squeeze is coming from the White House—higher tariffs inflating construction costs—and from inside our own house, where “taxes are quietly becoming the new interest rate,” Carucci says. “The typical buyer is no longer looking only at price but total cost of ownership.”

Even at the higher end, the pressure is mounting. Immigration policies are scaring off international students who used to snap up luxury condos. Affluent homeowners are eyeing escape from stiff income and estate taxes. And “will there ever be enough affordable housing?” Carucci asks. Don’t hold your breath.

Five years after Beacon Hill approved the MBTA Communities Act—a historic effort to penetrate the zoning barriers cities and towns have erected against affordable housing—the results are meager. A January study by the Boston Foundation found projects spawned by the act would add up to “substantially less” than a one percent increase in the housing stock. Not to mention, rents are at historically high levels, while vacancy rates are lower than ever. The state’s own website is unusually blunt about it. On mass.gov: “People move away from MA for many reasons, but housing cost is at the top of the list for many.” And an initiative headed for this fall’s ballot to restore rent control—32 years after it was banned statewide—would, Healey warned, just make things worse by stifling new production. “Investors in housing have already pulled out of Massachusetts because they’re concerned about rent control,” she told Boston Public Radio.

She’s not wrong. Jeff Kanne, whose firm, National Real Estate Advisors, manages roughly $10 billion in pension investments and has funded some of Boston’s tallest new towers, says he’s done deploying capital here. “My capital can go anywhere in the United States,” he told the Globe. So right now, he’s sending it to Atlanta and Washington, DC.

But housing is only part of the problem—the commercial real estate collapse threatens the services that make a city livable. There may be short-term political gain in Wu’s demonization of the commercial real estate industry during her push to raise commercial property taxes to offset plummeting downtown office values. It’s easier to blame fat-cat developers than to explain a structural budget crisis. But with a report from a nonpartisan Tufts think tank and the Boston Policy Institute (BPI) forecasting a $1.7 billion shortfall in Boston’s revenues due to the office-market implosion, the implications for regular working people are stark. As the BPI put it: “Tax shortfalls curtail city services, which makes the city less appealing, leading to additional declines in property values, and then further tax shortfalls and more service cuts.”

That’s the dreaded “doom loop” we wrote about in this magazine in June 2024—lower property values, less revenue, fewer services, repeat. Williams frames the endgame bluntly: “As the state’s population shrinks, its tax base also falls, putting greater pressure on affordability, providing further incentives for younger and prime-age workers to seek employment and set down roots elsewhere. When residents leave Massachusetts, they take their belongings and earnings, too. A growing tax base is lost.”

You can see it in the Boston skyline, once teeming with construction cranes. In Kendall Square, a restaurant owner told the Globe his business dropped 5 to 8 percent last year—the NIH cuts reaching all the way down to the lunch crowd. Statewide, according to the Federal Reserve, the unemployment rate jumped to nearly a half-point higher than the nation’s by year’s end. Employers shed a net 4,500 jobs in 2024 and 2025. Strip out healthcare hiring, according to a Globe analysis, and the losses would have exceeded 20,000. In September alone, according to a report from the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, the state lost more than 11,000 jobs—the worst single month since the onset of the pandemic. “In some of the construction trades, half the workers are unemployed,” reports Chrissy Lynch, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. And while chronically struggling regions like Springfield and Worcester have been hit hard, so, too, has the more affluent Boston/Cambridge/Newton region, with joblessness up a half-point year-to-year.

Last one to leave the state, turn off the lights. If you can afford to keep them lit in the first place. Public outcry over the nation’s third-highest electricity rates forced Healey to delay new clean heat standards until 2028—coming on top of delays in offshore wind power expansion and electric-vehicle sales quotas, a telling acknowledgement of the role sky-high electricity costs are playing in the affordability crisis.

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index tells the rest of the story: Employers “remained pessimistic for an 11th consecutive month,” weighed down by “tariffs, federal immigration enforcement and the cost of doing business in Massachusetts.”

Eleven months of pessimism. And counting.

State leaders know there’s a problem. They just can’t agree on what to do about it.

State leaders know there’s a problem. They just can’t agree on what to do about it. “It’s true we’re facing headwinds, and we’re looking at the different ways to address them,” said Healey in her January State of the Commonwealth Address. “Donald Trump has made cuts and caused chaos,” she added as she rolled out her FY27 budget plan in mid-February. But while political leaders from the State House to City Hall are busy touting small-scale gestures—like a 10 percent cut in gas bills and 25 percent cut in electric bills this winter that utility companies will claw back later this year—and convening earnest discussions about competitiveness and affordability, the question remains: What, exactly, is the plan?

Williams’s assessment is that the political class doesn’t really grasp the scale of the disaster. “There’s not a sense of urgency—I don’t feel that at the governor’s level or Wu’s level,” he says. “I don’t see them thinking from a macro perspective. We can’t be Trump-proofed.”

As businesses and residents flee to greener pastures, Governor Maura Healey has acknowledged the state faces economic headwinds. / Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images for Vox Media

Healey pushed back. “While Massachusetts faces economic headwinds driven by federal policy decisions and high costs,” she told Boston, “my administration is clear-eyed about the work required to address them.” And her administration has been anything but idle. During her three years in office, the governor has produced a 2023 economic development plan called “Team Massachusetts: Leading Future Generations,” signed the $4 billion Mass Leads Act funding everything from AI hubs to climate tech, created a Competitiveness Council of 20 business and labor leaders, and filed a $400 million DRIVE Initiative to backfill federal research cuts. Healey also cited more than 30 companies that have recently moved headquarters here, opened offices, or expanded their footprint—including Hasbro, Lego, and prominent players in biotech and AI.

On paper, it’s an impressive portfolio. In practice, the results tell a different story. Massachusetts has become one of only four states with fewer private-sector jobs than before the pandemic—roughly 24,000 lost since January 2020, according to the Pioneer Institute. And from April through June 2024 alone, the state experienced a net loss of more than 5,000 businesses.

The political system backs Williams up. Healey’s 2023 tax-cut package—designed to make the state more competitive—was heavily watered down by the legislature, and her effort to give cities and towns more revenue-raising ability was dead on arrival. Wu’s commercial-property tax plan, which critics warned would accelerate the business exodus, couldn’t make it through the Senate. The state’s two most prominent leaders proposed and pushed hard for their biggest economic ideas—and neither could get them done.

While the evidence mounts, some on Beacon Hill whistle past the graveyard. “Our recent revenue numbers continue to show the resiliency of our economy,” House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said at a budget hearing in February. “While some folks are almost wishing us into some type of recession for political gain, the leadership in this State House will continue to navigate our fiscal stewardship with persistence.”

That’s not stewardship. That’s denial. And Williams calls recent state and local budget increases—well in excess of inflation—a sign of exactly that.

But denial is only part of the problem. In the basketball parlance so beloved by Healey, a former Harvard point guard, our political culture is like a star center whose ability to pivot toward the hoop is blocked at every turn by a swarming defense. Organized labor, a potent force on Beacon Hill, often throws up roadblocks to cost savings, education reforms, and responses to fast-moving developments like the AI revolution—Lynch, the AFL-CIO president, warns the state is “behind in understanding the consequences.”

Meanwhile, the pace of everything from permitting to transportation projects has been stifled. “Decisions that might take weeks are now taking months,” Murray says. “There’s gotta be an urgency across the board.”

And yet the constraints of rivalries, ideology, and special-interest pressure pale in comparison to what the citizens themselves may impose. This year’s ballot is on track to offer a record number of binding questions, including strict statewide rent control, a 20 percent cut in the state income tax, and the repeal of legal recreational marijuana sales—each of which would shrink state revenue at the worst possible time. “Ballot questions appeal to base interests,” says Eastern Bank executive chair Bob Rivers, who led the failed 2024 resistance to dumping MCAS test passage as a high school graduation requirement. Adds Brooke Thomson, president and CEO of AIM: “There’s a desire for sledgehammer-type solutions when what you need is a scalpel.”

Can Massachusetts be saved? The people who know the economy best don’t sound optimistic.

Can Massachusetts avoid catastrophe? We’ve been down before and bounced back. But the people who know the economy best don’t sound optimistic.

“I do think there are thoughtful conversations happening,” says Melnik of UMass. But former State Treasurer Steve Grossman, now CEO of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, calls for a “radical re-imagination” of priorities and policy because “leadership at every level doesn’t fully understand the crisis that is at our door.” For his part, Williams urges state and local leaders to stop enacting policies that weaken Massachusetts’ competitive advantages. The ideas shared with us by political and business leaders are sensible and achievable—and, given the political realities, likely doomed to die in committee.

Senator Finegold, who sits on the Competitiveness Council created last fall by Healey, identifies construction regulations that slow housing development as an obvious target for reform and urges a reduction in long waiting lists for vocational/technical schools. Cubby Oil & Energy president Charlie Uglietto, who served on Charlie Baker’s Commission on Clean Heat, calls for a turn away from electricity-or-bust toward incentivizing renewable diesel, as other states are doing: “Take a look at what would economically work while we’re trying to meet these goals and not set hard caps that can’t be met.”

Housing reform, more vocational training opportunities, renewable diesel—sound ideas, all of them. But against a $12.8 billion tariff hit, a brain drain of 33,000-plus residents a year, and a federal government actively redistributing our funding—sensible may not be enough. The hard truth is that all too often we’d rather be right than competitive.

Can we muster some humility and, while resisting the worst of Trumpism, reinvent ourselves as a place willing to shed political and ideological baggage before it drags us under?

Consider the alternative. New Hampshire’s politicians spent the holidays bragging about every company they’ve stolen from us. Rhode Island is landing the German firms that used to come here without a second thought. The vultures aren’t circling. They’ve already landed.

Listen closely, and you can already hear what comes next if nothing changes.

Empty storefronts.

Deserted lab space.

Vacated neighborhoods.

And on the floor of the abandoned Cape Cod potato chip factory in Hyannis—the phantom crunch of chip fragments that no one is around to step on.

The Damage, at a Glance

24,000

Number of people who lost jobs in Massachusetts since January 2020.

5,333

Number of businesses that closed in the state from April through June 2024.

6

Number of healthcare systems, out of nearly two dozen, that ended last year with positive operating budgets.

905

Number of jobs lost in Massachusetts in January 2026 alone.

$12.8 billion

Projected loss in economic growth from tariffs in the state.

$1.7 billion

Forecasted Boston revenue shortfall due to the office-market implosion.

33,340

Net number of residents who left the state during the year ending last July.

12

Number of colleges closed and merged over the past decade.

The Plan for Massachusetts’ Future—and Why It’s Stuck

The Idea: Governor Healey’s 2023 tax cuts.

The Status: Watered down by the legislature.

The Idea: Revenue-raising authority for cities and towns.

The Status: Dead on arrival.

The Idea: Mayor Wu’s commercial-property-tax increase.

The Status: Killed in the Senate.

The Idea: The MBTA Communities Act.

The Status: Estimated less than a one percent housing increase after five years.

The Idea: The DRIVE Initiative ($400 million to backfill federal research cuts).

The Status: Filed.

The Idea: Mass Leads Act ($4 billion to fund everything from AI hubs to climate tech).

The Status: Signed.

The Idea: Clean heat standards.

The Status: Delayed.

The Idea: Offshore wind expansion.

The Status: Delayed

The Idea: Electric-vehicle sales quotas.

The Status: Delayed.

The Idea: State Senator Barry Finegold’s housing/zoning reform.

The Status: Proposed.

This article was first published in the print edition of the April 2026 issue, with the headline, “Going, Going…Gone.”

Is Boston’s Economy Doomed?

Our New Directory of Greater Boston’s Top Senior Living and Care Communities Is Here

Camille Dodero — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 12:00:13 +0000

Illustrations via Getty Images

Maybe it starts with a parent who’s managing fine but could use some help. Maybe it’s more about finding a place for dad where independence doesn’t mean isolation, where there’s a community down the hall instead of an empty house. Or maybe it’s simpler than that: Maybe you’re just trying to figure out what the options actually are in Greater Boston, beyond the brochures and the websites that all show the same staged photos of plucky medical aides doting on beatific grannies.

No matter what the circumstances, the conversation about when you’re a senior and need a little assistance is rarely an easy one, but there are options. That’s why we’ve published this directory of Greater Boston’s leading senior living and care facilities, assembled by research and publishing platform DataJoe—a directory that covers a spectrum of options: independent living for people who aren’t looking to be taken care of, assisted living for when a little support goes a long way, and home health care that keeps everything familiar while bringing in professional help. Think of this as a starting point: A curated list that cuts through the noise so you can focus on finding the place, or the care, that actually fits. Because the right choice is not only knowing your options, but knowing what options can make life better, right now and down the road.

See the Directory

You can also find the directory in the April 2026 issue of Boston magazine, out on newsstands now.

For research/methodology questions of the directory, contact the research team at surveys@datajoe.com.

Why Do I Keep Yelling at My Kids? A Father Tries Not to.

Simone Migliori — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:00:54 +0000

Illustration by Zohar Lazar

I didn’t grow up with a lot of yelling. Any decent therapist would hear that and say, “We have to stop now. Enjoy your remaining 47 minutes somewhere else.” But that’s the setting I came from. My southern mom was eternally polite and patient. My Connecticut dad made non-reactivity an art form. And adding to the quiet, we were Detroit sports fans in Boston, so I got zero chances to scream in public places. Instead, I learned to keep any big feelings deep inside.

But as I got older, I started playing softball and tennis and, apparently, I could be something of a yeller—and quite a good one. Sure, it looks stupid when someone else does it. Dude, it’s slow-pitch. Your shortstop is wearing a fishing hat. But when I let loose, my words have lilt and a nuance that made others stop and say, “I gotta hear this guy. He’s got some majestic issues.”

When my wife and I had our second child, the tennis and softball stopped. So did the yelling. I was under the impression I was more responsible and didn’t have time for such foolishness. But the yelling was still in there and needed to come out every so often. Mostly, it was at clueless drivers who, my God, wouldn’t leave the parking space I was waiting to get into, or, seriously, were looking at their phone while driving by a school, or—holy eff—just sitting there while I was trying to back out of my driveway and…oh, you were letting me back up and trying to stay out of the way. Sorry. Hope you can’t read lips. I’m just happy that I can drive away and never see you again.

But I admit there’s been another target for my yelling. My kids. I don’t do it around their friends or when I’m coaching their teams, but when we’re home, and other eyes aren’t on me—and that includes in the driveway because that’s totally private—I might, on occasion, slightly raise my voice. It’s usually because my first seven requests, said in a calm, loving manner, haven’t worked, and the only way to break through is to…yeah, I got no good reason.

Yelling is rarely not dumb. No matter how much it might “work,” I never think, I feel so much better now. Look at all the smiles I created. Yet I persist in doing it with my 14- and 11-year-old sons, and I can guess why. I’m tired. I’m done with a conversation before they are. I’m frustrated that they won’t heed my nuggets of wisdom, such as “Come on. Focus,” or “You gotta step it up,” or my number-one hit: “If you just did it the first time, I wouldn’t have to.”

I want to yell for the reasons we all do. I want to be heard, and I want to be right. I want to be appalled, outraged, and aggrieved. I want someone to hear my pointed words and get some justice—namely, free shipping.

And then, in general, sometimes I just want to yell, because, well, I want to yell for the reasons we all do. I want to be heard, and I want to be right. I want to be appalled, outraged, and aggrieved. I want someone to hear my pointed words and get some justice—namely, free shipping. For a few minutes, I don’t want to be in control, in charge, or an adult. Sometimes, I just want someone to make me a sandwich and let me go to my room to listen to records.

Since that’s not happening, I need better outlets for my yelling. But where? At whom? Ticket agents and customer service representatives are no more. Chat boxes simulate caring and conversation while achieving neither, and no matter how forcefully I type “no” or slam “not likely” on a survey, there is no release. In desperation, just to get any response, I go to a company’s Frequently Asked Questions page, which amazingly never includes a question that I’ve ever asked. Check that. Once, as an icebreaker, I asked someone if they knew how Xfinity was making their life better. (They didn’t.)

Could I take responsibility for my behavior and try to be a more reasonable person? Sure, but there’s no fun in that. Instead, I blame you, AI. You have made me yell at my babies.

Or possibly you didn’t. Maybe I should just try to yell less at my kids. And I decided to do just that with my version of a sober December.

The last month of the year seemed like the perfect time: All we had going on was my younger son’s birthday, Hanukkah, Christmas, the longest public school vacation ever, and the fact that we don’t ski, so there would be gobs of downtime that would never be filled. My next goal is to refrain from carbs on Thanksgiving.

Before I entered this gauntlet, Beth Kurland, a psychologist in Norwood, gave me some reminders. Be aware of what puts me in a less-than-stellar mood. Realize that yelling is a protective move, part of the fight-or-flight response, and that while the threat might be under 54 inches, insistent, relentless, loud, unreasonable, not moving out anytime soon, and often doing all of this during a car ride, the threat isn’t so dire. Plus, most everyone ends up failing since “there’s only so many times you want to ask for this thing to happen,” she says. “We reach a tipping point.” At least she didn’t mention the importance of breathing.

And then she did. But it’s not just breathing. It’s the exhalation that matters. When it’s longer and slower, it calms down the nervous system, and holy eff, another breathing tip. Really?

But I had nothing else that seemed to be working, so I gave it a shot and goddamned if it didn’t help. It gave me just enough pause to think, You want to be less like a lunatic right now? And the answer was usually, Why yes, I do, and so I did. Whenever a skirmish between the kids would bubble up, I’d do my routine: Exhaaaaaale and then think of how I wanted to be. I kept doing that, and for the first five days, I was killing it. I was so happy, and I had to imagine everyone else was. I was cured. I was never gonna have to yell ever, ever, ever again, and I’d probably get nominated for some national, or at least regional, award, which would probably be Dumbass of the Year.

Because on Day 6, it was trash day and it was a windy trash day. I was outside trying to corral my barrels. One lid came off, and the same box flew down the street for a second time, and Who was the crazy person yelling four-letter words at cardboard? Oh, it was me. But my kids were at school, so it was okay. I was just doing a little self-care. It was me time.

I never imploded over the month, but the non-yelling became less easy. One Saturday afternoon, my son and I pulled in opposite directions on a bowl. Tortilla chips were lost, and I reacted. Was it a yell? Technically, yes, made worse by the fact that it was over tortilla chips. It was a stupid use of yelling capital, if such a thing even exists.

The problem, I realized, was that my son was right in front of me. My initial success stemmed from always being in another room whenever a tussle happened. Even if it was just the kitchen, I could take three calming steps, enough to prepare my head. But on this afternoon, with this bowl, it was, “Boom. Guy stole the ball. Time to get back on D. No time to think.”

I could shake off that slip-up, which has never been easy for me. My parents, remember, were quiet folks, and each time I yell, it feels like a kind of failure. But I tell myself that there’s no perfect score to this game, a thought I might one day fully buy into.

The bigger problem was that even while I was yelling much less, I didn’t feel much better. I actually felt worse. My volume might have been down, but is saying something through clenched teeth really any better?

Of course it is. One is harsh and unnecessary, while the other is a completely gentle, sweet kind of communication that has its own weekend workshop at Kripalu.

It’s like most things. You can do everything right, and it still doesn’t work. I did mention all the holidays, the birthday, school vacation, the money going out. Did I mention AI is coming for my job while I’m busy not yelling?

The thing is, not yelling is the bare minimum for decent behavior. It’s not some salve for happiness. Oh, and there’s also a scientific reason for my mood.

“Some days you feel shittier than others,” Kurland says.

If that were on a pillow, I’d hug it every night to fall asleep.

Things eventually evened out. I still had moments of non-glory, because video games have not disappeared from the earth. But I also checked myself before bursting into an early-morning scuffle with a pep talk that might have involved “Sack up.” (Also another great pillow phrase.)

Even though December ended, it’s not like I decided, “Glad that’s over.” I’ve continued to tinker with my ways. One is trying to say what I want maybe just five times. The other is playing with my voice, changing the tone and the cadence. It seems to work, if only because it’s different enough to make my kids stop and wonder who that strange, calm man is. The one reminding them that, yes, we brush teeth before we go to bed.

I actually have a good feeling about this method. I see it lasting past the novelty stage and leading to big, big things, like a book, media appearances, and hopefully a coffee mug. I’ll finally have a social media presence, only because I’ll have the cash to hire someone to manage it. I’ll become a parenting expert, The Delivery Man (trademark pending). I’ll do trainings, workshops, and one-on-one sessions. Use any accent you want. It’s your voice. This might be the greatest invention ever—right after I design a metal water bottle that doesn’t dent and fall over.

Now that’s a reason to yell.

This article was first published in the print edition of the March 2026 issue with the headline: “Yelling in Cars With Boys.”

New Lawsuit Accuses Aaron Sells of “Facilitating” Sexual Assault Outside 1928 Beacon Hill

Susan Zalkind — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:33:45 +0000

An interior of 1928 Beacon Hill, the location cited in the suit. / Photo by Joe St. Pierre

Aaron Sells, the Boston dealmaker profiled by this magazine last October, is named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit alleging that his conduct helped facilitate the rape of a woman outside 1928 Beacon Hill—the restaurant he and his fiancée have long insisted he has no role in.

The complaint, filed February 20 in Suffolk Superior Court and now under seal, alleges that Sells and a co-defendant, Brandon Ambris of Elkhart, Indiana, orchestrated a “sham” business meeting at the restaurant on March 4, 2023 designed to intoxicate the plaintiff and “isolate her while impaired.” The plaintiff, who is identified in the complaint but not named in this story to protect her privacy, alleges Ambris then sexually assaulted her in an alleyway near the restaurant.

Sells is not accused of committing or participating in the assault. But the lawsuit alleges that his “actions and omissions”—including communicating with Ambris about plaintiff’s intoxication, failing to stop the alcohol service despite awareness of her “impaired condition,” and failing to prevent her from leaving the restaurant with Ambris, all while exercising “operational authority” over business at 1928, including alcohol service—“substantially assisted, facilitated, or enabled the circumstances that allowed the assault to occur.”

The allegations of the filing directly contradict statements that Sells and his fiancée, restaurateur Kristin Jenkins, have made to creditors and to this magazine about Sells’ alleged role at the restaurant. After Sells filed for bankruptcy in 2022, his ex-wife alleged in a court filing that he held an “undisclosed beneficial interest” in 1928. Sells and Jenkins both denied this under oath during the bankruptcy proceedings, with Jenkins also telling Boston that Sells “does not play a role in any of my businesses.”

The complaint alleges otherwise. The plaintiff claims Sells “exercised involvement in or influence over alcohol service practices, staffing decisions, and/or restaurant operations” at 1928.

The plaintiff, a Massachusetts woman who says she attended the meeting to discuss “a potential business relationship and sales opportunity in her position selling commercial energy,” alleges she was served wine and three to four mixed drinks, with Ambris encouraging her to keep drinking. The complaint says that despite visible signs of her impairment, alcohol continued to be served. It also alleges that Sells and Ambris “communicated during the evening regarding [her] intoxication and continued presence at the restaurant.” After she became incapacitated, the complaint alleges, Ambris “removed” her from the restaurant to a nearby alleyway, where he “ripped the Plaintiff’s underwear from her body” and raped her “both digitally and with his penis.”

The lawsuit includes claims for “civil conspiracy” and “aiding and abetting,” alleging that Sells and Ambris “reached an express or tacit agreement” to cause the plaintiff to “consume excessive alcohol and to isolate her while impaired,” and that “by permitting continued alcohol service and failing to intervene,” Sells “substantially assisted and facilitated” Ambris’s conduct. Boston obtained a copy of the complaint from the court before the case was sealed.

The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages for alleged severe emotional distress, psychological trauma, medical and therapy expenses, and lost wages. She has requested a jury trial.

E. Steven Coren, an attorney representing both Ambris and Sells, declined to comment on the sealed case. Thomas Flaws, an attorney representing the plaintiff, also declined to comment on the civil filing or a prior criminal investigation conducted by Boston Police. But in a statement to Boston magazine, Jenkins said her staff at 1928 cooperated with a Boston Police investigation three years ago.

1928 Beacon Hill LLC is also named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit, facing claims of negligence and dram shop liability for allegedly serving alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron. “1928 willingly provided relevant information, video footage, and point of sale data to Boston Police when they inquired about this allegation,” Jenkins said. She added that she condemns “in the strongest possible terms any and all violence against women, and would be the first to accept responsibility for such an act if 1928 bore any responsibility.” Jenkins also reasserted that Sells is not a staff member of the restaurant. “Aaron Sells has never been an employee of 1928,” she said.

Criminal charges were never filed against Sells or Ambris, according to a Suffolk County DA’s office spokesperson. The civil case is ongoing.

Previously

How to Win Friends and Lose Millions: The Aaron Sells Story

The Rise and “Tragic!” Fall of Boston’s Most Powerful Stylist

Susan Zalkind — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 10:00:32 +0000

Photo by Tony Luong

Moments before it all fell apart, Suhail Kwatra—the most coveted stylist in Boston—was entirely in his element. It was already dark, just after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 18, and he was in his second-floor office within the exclusive Fifth Avenue Club inside Saks at the Prudential Center. This was his domain—a gold velvet couch, champagne, and racks of clothes he’d personally selected for each client.

It was chilly in the store that evening, and Kwatra was dressed in a Roberto Cavalli purple python-print puffer. He was styling the resident of one of Brookline’s grandest estates, and she wanted more sweaters and purses to peruse. Kwatra told her he’d venture into the store to fetch them.

Downstairs, a shopping bag full of Chanel knits and purses in hand, Kwatra was about to head back upstairs when he was approached by two men in dark suits from asset protection: Tim Wade and John Wells, according to a police report. Kwatra says the men suggested he follow them and ushered him past the designer shoes, through a code-locked door, and into a small office.

By the time Kwatra left the room, he no longer had a job—and police were waiting to charge him with larceny and fraud. The allegation: He had returned unclaimed merchandise and pocketed the funds on Saks gift cards for himself. The total: $11,707.51.

But that wasn’t it. Wade and Wells handed police a handwritten letter from Kwatra in which he apologized and admitted to stealing $429,400 by way of fraudulent returns, mismanagement of promotional cards, giving away merchandise, and abusing his corporate credit card over the course of his career at Saks. (Kwatra denies the charges and says he was forced to write the letter under duress.) He was then marched out of the store, flanked by management and police, for all to see.

By midnight, everyone in town knew. Kwatra’s life, as he’d built it, was over. And so, too, was an era in Boston society.

By midnight, everyone in town knew. Kwatra’s life, as he’d built it, was over. And so, too, was an era in Boston society.

Originally from New Delhi, Kwatra was not just any stylist. Over more than two decades, he had cultivated a cult-like following among Boston’s social elite, powerful professionals, the married-well set, and anyone else with tens of thousands of dollars a year to burn on clothing, bags, and jewelry. Starting in the early aughts, he was the man who enabled the city to transition out of country-club attire into avant-garde fashion replete with flashy markers of wealth—something unheard-of among Boston’s Brahmin set. He amassed a client list that read like a social register, became the gatekeeper to Boston’s fashion world, and orchestrated the look of the city’s entire social scene.

And then there was Saks, his stage. As a prized stylist with the Fifth Avenue Club—the store’s exclusive personal-shopping program—the company gave him a private office and, it seemed, free rein to build an empire inside its walls. It sent him to Fashion Week in Paris with his clients and to the galas around Boston for which he dressed the guests. His black book made him invaluable. And—according to some former employees and clients I spoke to—untouchable.

Along the way, he became a fixture of Boston society himself. “It was part of the social fabric of the town to go to Saks and go to Suhail,” an heir to a real estate fortune explained. And clients’ relationships with Kwatra extended far outside the confines of the Fifth Avenue Club. They texted with him at all hours, accompanied him to lunches, parties, and clubs, and traveled all over the world with him. They introduced him to the ins and outs of Nantucket. They told him their secrets and gossiped about other women with him. Among his most frequent lines when talking about someone—“Tragic!”

Despite his power and popularity, rumors began circulating among clients and coworkers that he could play things fast and loose—double-billing, charging for items that weren’t purchased, and capitalizing on women who didn’t pay attention to their credit card bills because an office or a husband handled them. These stories mostly stayed quiet. “In Boston, it’s old Brahmin—we don’t say anything,” one spouse of a finance titan and former Kwatra client explained. But some took their complaints straight to the management at Saks—and they say they watched as the company seemed to simply look the other way.

Until it didn’t.

The question is why. Why now, after two decades? The answer may have as much to do with Saks as it does with Kwatra. By the time security pulled him into that small office, the company was drowning in billions of dollars of debt. Vendors hadn’t been paid in months—some had filed lawsuits; others had simply stopped shipping. A dying institution, it seems, needed someone to blame.

Or so Kwatra claims.

Tiffany Ortiz was one of Kwatra’s many boldface clients.

Gossip moves fast in Boston, and news about what happened to Kwatra escaped Saks almost immediately. That evening, just down the street from the department store, the Australian luxury brand Zimmermann was opening its first Boston location on Newbury Street. Inside, moving between elegant clothing in muted colors and passed canapés, was a carefully curated crowd consisting of the city’s power glam spenders and socialites. Many were Kwatra’s clients.

The whispers arrived mid-party: Did you hear? Phones lit up. Jaws dropped. Shock registered on carefully made-up faces. “I’m not even sure people looked at what was happening at Zimmermann that night,” the spouse of the finance titan said.

By midnight, the police report had traveled far beyond Newbury Street—forwarded, screenshotted, texted from one boldface personality to the next. As it moved through the city’s gossip circuit, it triggered a kaleidoscope of responses among current and former clients: disbelief, hurt, satisfaction, and no small dose of schadenfreude. Others scrambled to find old Saks receipts.

The finance mogul’s wife, who said she’d spent “upward of a million dollars” with Kwatra over the years, told me the news left clients feeling “violated in the same way as having a husband cheat on them.” Another client—fabulously wealthy and close to Kwatra—began to wonder if his attention to her parents and her pets was only a ruse to get her business. Following the news, she read a 2014 Boston Globe profile of him for the first time. When she came across the part where he said he had a “folder” of notes about clients’ pets—and their favorite treats—to endear himself to them, she said it “kind of made me throw up in my mouth.” Yet she concluded that there must have been other elements of the relationship that were genuine. They had been such close friends. For all the public galas she attended, there were few people she let into her selective social circle like she did with him. Reflecting on their relationship in this new light was “hurting my heart,” she said.

Kwatra denied any strategy or “agenda” behind remembering a client’s dog’s name. But, if a client mentioned the name of a pet or brought a dog to the store, he said he would have one of his assistants take note. “You want to make the clients feel welcome,” he said.

Some clients rose to his defense, more disgusted by certain women’s reactions than by the alleged infractions. “There are people who almost want to see him fall,” noted one well-known gala regular on the philanthropy circuit. “People always love to see people on their knees. The glee in some people’s faces. You can hear it in their voice.” Sure, Kwatra could be pushy and sometimes judgmental, and, upon further reflection, she acknowledged he did charge her twice for an item—but it only happened once. She insisted she continues to “like him very much.”

One former client, who said Kwatra had long been one of her best friends, described his bill infractions as “just something we were used to.” She had learned to “accommodate it,” she said, because she assumed it was either an honest mistake or an assistant screwing up.

Others saw the charges Kwatra was facing as his just comeuppance. “Karma is a bitch, isn’t it?” said one local businesswoman. “I couldn’t be less surprised.” She guessed Kwatra had gotten away with it because “there are a lot of idiots who just pay their bills without looking at them.” In her experience, “the receipts would be screwed up all the time.” She would get charged for items she didn’t buy and alterations that never happened. “He deserves all of this,” she said. (Kwatra says that many of these issues were a result of wider billing and administrative problems at Saks.)

But many of the women left reeling by the news were also perplexed—after all, some said Saks had known about the issues with Kwatra the whole time. The socialite who had spent more than a million with him said she complained to the store years ago after noticing he had billed her four times for the same item. She had warned management: “Something is drastically wrong at Saks right now, and it’s all in the hands of Suhail.” That was years ago—and nothing happened.

Which leads to the obvious question one former client posed: “Who is worse: Saks or Suhail?”

Photo by Tony Luong

Before the scandal, there was just a kid from New Delhi. Kwatra grew up in a large, extended family, the son of the owner of a third-generation clothing business that specialized in European styles. “Fashion was always in my blood,” he told me.

His family had Boston ties, and he’d spent time in Weston growing up. He got a job at Saks in 2005, then moved to New York to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology—working for Saks there, too—and by 2007 was back at the Pru.

Saks opened in Boston in 1971, a few years after a store official brushed aside the notion that Bostonians are a drab lot, and insisted in an interview with the Boston Globe that the city was “receptive to high fashion.” The Globe’s fashion editor agreed, writing that Saks could be the “giant hand that whips Boston fashion into place.”

It would take a while. But by the time Kwatra came to work there some three decades later, Boston was in the midst of a cultural and economic renaissance. There were more people flashing money and fewer Brahmins around to turn up their noses at them. Even if the rich were no longer strictly old school, they were still playing Brahmin games: the fundraisers, the galas, the tables at charity events—all of which required designer looks that could compete with New York’s social scene. There were also ambitious women rising in real estate, medicine, and law, looking to close big deals in an increasingly global world. They needed to look the part. They needed someone to help. Kwatra—with his infectious love of luxury and his preternatural ability to immerse himself in his clients’ lives—would become their guide, their gatekeeper, their man.

Around 2013, Kwatra said, the store’s marketing manager told him that she wanted to get him out into Boston—“outside of these four walls.” Saks sponsored luncheons and charity events, inviting Kwatra to attend. At one of these luncheons, the manager introduced Kwatra to a group of very social women of means—whom Kwatra calls “the girls”—telling them they needed to visit him at the store. “After lunch,” he recalled, “I went back to work, and the gaggle of girls rolled in.”

The rest is history. Kwatra was a smashing success on the floor, and in 2015, after a record-breaking year of sales—some $7 million, he says—he was promoted to the Fifth Avenue Club, where he built something unprecedented: a personal-styling empire within the store.

His second-floor office at Saks became a destination. The champagne. The personalized, special treatment. The racks of clothes preselected for each client. He would have all the outfits before the big events, dressing each woman to ensure no duplicates. Kwatra made regular trips to New York to get special items, then messaged his clients—and they would come to what he called his “magic closet.”

Sinesia Karol, Daniela Corte, and Amber D’Amelio were some of Kwatra’s many boldface clients.

A lot of boldface names moved in and out of that closet: Tiffany Ortiz, former wife of Big Papi; Christy Cashman, an author and equestrian well-known in Boston society; Janet Sharp Kershaw who co-owns Cheers and private events venue Hampshire House with her husband; socialites Laura Baldini and Ashley Bernon-Miller; swimwear designer Sinesia Karol; Madhu Chopra, mother of Priyanka; and Sarah Mars, of that Mars family—to name a few.

Along the way, he shifted the fashion culture of Boston. “I’ll take credit for it,” he said, explaining that Boston is “a knit city” where women “love their cozy knits.” He pushed them to expand their tastes. Women back then were wearing Escada and Malo—“those were tolerable.” Then Rick Owens. He got them interested in Yigal, then Issey Miyake. And on it went, until he had elevated an entire city’s sense of style.

Dressing the powerful made Kwatra powerful in his own right. He controlled the velvet rope at after-parties with designers—a you-can’t-sit-here attitude—and was often in charge of the seating list. Women would let him pick the guests at their fundraising tables. He would also hold his own events, which he refers to as “thoughtful experiences,” that many people wanted to get in on so they could connect with his clients and climb the social ladder. Some people wanted to spend time around his clients because it was “good for their business,” he says. “I was doing my job well, I was successful, and I had the right contacts. A lot of people in this Boston social scene that I don’t think need me, I come to find out that they do because they want to be seen and they want to be included in these events. And it wasn’t me chasing after them—it’s them chasing after me.”

If Truman Capote had his swans, Kwatra had his “girls.” They partied with him. Shared their secrets with him. Gossiped with him. Beyond “tragic,” his clients recalled him calling other women “peasants” and “D-list.” And they loved it. The former client said Kwatra was “totally fun to be mean with…I could not wait to be mean with him.” She would go to Saks to find out “who had gotten fat and who had gotten skinny. If I was having a moment with somebody that I was a little jealous of, I’d have Suhail look up what size they’re wearing these days just to make myself feel better.” (Kwatra denies making fun of his female clients’ weight, and says that though he may have used “peasants” in conversation, it was all “silly talk.”)

Meanwhile, his coworkers watched with amazement—and, Kwatra says, no small dose of jealousy—at the loyal and highly profitable relationships he built. “The women would flock to him,” said Bianca Carney, who worked as his assistant in the early 2010s. His clients loved him and enjoyed having him around. Willem Learn, who worked in Saks’ jewelry department during Kwatra’s tenure, said Kwatra could be pushy and rude to his clients, but they seemed to eat it up: “There is some skill set that he has that was addictive to them.”

Still, there were rumblings that underneath the glitz, glam, gossip, and success, something was rotten. Coworkers had warned Learn that Kwatra played things “fast and loose.” But Learn understood why nothing would ever come of it. Kwatra was more powerful than Saks “because he owns the book”—meaning he had the contacts. “With that much power, it would be dangerous to mess with him,” Learn said. “He could have gotten in trouble a long time ago—he shouldn’t have lasted this long.”

Another former employee, Steven Ertel, who sold shoes from 2017 to 2018, agreed. “If you are a top seller at the store, selling millions of dollars, they are going to look the other direction.… It’s all about whoever is a top earner—they turn a blind eye.”

Inside Saks at the Prudential Center. / Photo by Roman Tiraspolsky

For many years, little about Wendy Appel suggested she was a woman of means. She drove Subarus or Volvos, and one of her only extravagances was buying a designer purse every few years. In reality, she was fabulously wealthy. She ran both the real estate company her father had founded, and the family’s charitable foundation, through which she donated quietly and generously to the Museum of Science, GBH, hospitals, and arts organizations.

Starting in 2012, she suffered a series of strokes. That’s when, according to multiple people close to the situation, everything started to change: her appearance and—perhaps most tellingly—the boxes upon boxes of unopened merchandise from Saks that began piling up in her building’s lobby.

According to spending records I reviewed, she became a regular Saks shopper in early 2013. Her purchases mostly consisted of skin care, makeup, and handbags. But as the months went on, her expenditures increased dramatically—more bags and expensive jewelry, often topping thousands of dollars each. By the end of 2013, she had spent close to $100,000 at Saks.

The next year, her jewelry purchases increased, and she started buying big-ticket items more frequently. She bought two $20,000 Chanel watches in a single day. One day in October, she made three jewelry purchases totaling more than $154,000, followed by a necklace for $320,000 in December. The total for 2014: $1.2 million. In 2015—Kwatra’s biggest sales year ever—she spent just under $3 million.

That year, Appel’s son Michael had started to grow concerned about his mother’s spending. After he confronted her about it, Appel was adamant there was no problem. That July, Appel sent Kwatra an email—which I reviewed—asking him not to share information about her account with anyone, including family members. When Michael reached out to Kwatra directly, Wendy caught wind of it and left Kwatra a voicemail—I’ve heard it—apologizing for Michael’s actions. “For some reason he thinks I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I told him, ‘I can assure you I know exactly what I’m doing.’”

In December, Michael tried to get Saks to intercede, meeting in-person with the company’s head of northeast security to ask for help. Nothing came of it. In the first two months of 2016 alone, according to sales records, Appel spent half a million dollars at Saks.

Then, in February 2016, Michael received a text message from a Saks employee warning him about his mother’s relationship with Kwatra. “They are taking advantage of your mother,” it read. The employee added that Kwatra “made her buy a leather top from [Louis Vuitton]. Is that a joke? I don’t see your mother wearing that…. He is terrible.”

Michael had had enough. In May 2016, his attorney sent Saks a formal cease-and-desist letter: “Michael is concerned that Wendy is being taken advantage of by Suhail Kwatra, a salesperson at Saks…. It appears that Mr. Kwatra is exploiting Wendy and taking advantage of her diminished capacity by suggesting that Wendy purchase large amounts of merchandise, most of which is quite expensive.”

Appel was subsequently diagnosed with dementia. She can no longer communicate verbally.

Kwatra says the sales associate who sent those texts to Michael did so because the colleague was “jealous of me and my success.” In one message I reviewed, the associate wrote: “I am the number one sales associate in this store and they are just trying to ‘beat’ me in sales by using your mother.” As for Michael’s efforts to get Saks to stop selling to his mother? Kwatra says Michael was “freaked out because I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘Well, there goes my inheritance.’”

Kwatra says he doesn’t think he did anything wrong—morally or otherwise—in his dealings with Appel. He was doing his job, he says, and Saks encouraged him to keep selling to her. “She was a number one client, and they wanted her to keep going. So they would say, ‘Well, if she’s not buying jewelry, then you should show her handbags.… Cross-sell, don’t just focus on one thing.’ Nobody ever said stop.… I got a huge pat on the back from leadership and executives that I was able to develop a cosmetics client into a top client of the store.”

One current store employee—no fan of Kwatra—agreed that the store encouraged Kwatra to sell to Appel. “They said, ‘There’s this trunk show, do you think there’s anything Wendy might like?’ That’s encouraging someone.” (Saks declined to comment on the record about matters pertaining to Appel.)

But Appel’s family members weren’t the only ones with complaints. I spoke to seven people who claimed Kwatra had mismanaged their accounts, either charging them for items they didn’t buy or overcharging them for items they did. Some said the discrepancies were in the thousands—and yet some of these women continued to shop with him.

Most who spoke to me did so on the condition of anonymity. Some were embarrassed to publicly admit how much they spent on clothes; others were concerned, they said, about how much Kwatra knew about their personal lives and what he might say about them, given the way he had talked about other women in the past. “A lot of us went through divorces with him,” one said, adding that she wished Saks had required him to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Kwatra says he would never reveal information about his clients.

Amber D’Amelio, a former client who is now an animal-rights activist, was willing to tell her story. She met Kwatra in 2011 when she was new to town. As they became friendly, he helped fill her charity foundation tables, and she threw his 30th birthday party on her yacht. She considered him a friend.

Then, a few years later, her husband “clocked a big charge” on her credit card bill for a “very expensive Chanel bag” she had never ordered. When Kwatra told her he had ordered it for her, she said she didn’t want it and asked him to return it. When the refund didn’t materialize, D’Amelio says, she reported the issue to Saks’ general manager, who refunded the charge. (Still employed by Saks, the general manager declined to comment for this story.) Incidents like that kept happening, D’Amelio says, and Kwatra made excuses, blaming his assistant.

Kwatra said that when D’Amelio was new in town, she “wanted to climb the ladder, and I was her ticket”—something D’Amelio denies. As for the billing issues: “If Amber had any issues with any of her charges, they were taken care of by the store manager,” Kwatra said.

Zach Haroutunian, who runs a private investment firm, had a similar experience. As a student at Suffolk University, he began shopping with Kwatra and believed they were truly friends. As the relationship progressed, he says, Kwatra began telling him he needed to hold charges on his card so Kwatra could bring items from New York to Boston for him to try on. Haroutunian initially agreed, but then “it snowballed into him sending racks of fur coats to my house.… I told him, ‘Suhail, this is a little bit too much,’ and he would be like, ‘Well, of course you need clothes.’” Haroutunian believes that management knew “exactly what was going on.” (For his part, Kwatra says that if anyone brought any discrepancies to his attention, “it was addressed right away.”)

When he tried to return items Kwatra sent him, Haroutunian says Kwatra made him “feel cheap,” suggesting that returning items was distasteful. People who return items were “tragic,” he recalls Kwatra saying. Later, Haroutunian says he found he had been charged for items he didn’t purchase at all. “Suhail took advantage of the fact that people weren’t checking their credit card statements,” he said.

Kwatra, though, contends Haroutunian “was an impulse buyer. He would buy and return and buy and return.” Kwatra also said Haroutunian would try to return items he had worn, clothes that came back with “stains on them and gum wrappers [in the pockets].” (Haroutunian denies he ever returned or attempted to return used merchandise.)

Whether Saks knew what Kwatra was doing—whether it was part of their business model or they simply never bothered to look into the complaints they received—is now a matter of legal dispute. What is not in dispute is that the whole thing was about to come apart at the seams.

Stylist Suhail Kwatra. / Photo by Joanne Rathe/the Boston Globe via Getty Images

By the time Kwatra was pulled into that small office by two men from asset protection, Saks was in trouble. Within two months, the company would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $4.7 billion in debt. The company owed Chanel $136 million; Kering (the conglomerate behind Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga) nearly $60 million; Christian Louboutin more than $21 million; Brunello Cucinelli more than $21 million; Georgio Armani upward of $10 million; and Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, and Vince more than $9 million each, according to the company’s bankruptcy filing.

It was a staggering turn for a brand that opened its flagship store on Fifth Avenue in 1924, the brainchild of two merchant families who dreamed of a store synonymous with gracious living. Back then, department stores were grand symbols of commerce—glittering public sitting rooms for affluent women to socialize while they spent. They shaped urban areas and were once so powerful that in 1939, industry titans successfully lobbied President Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving one week earlier to lengthen the holiday shopping season.

The department store reigned for decades, but it could not reign forever. In 1992, department stores claimed 14 percent of all retail sales nationwide. Then came the Internet, and brick-and-mortar stores were hit across the board. Analysts believed luxury retailers were resilient—above a certain price point, customers want to try items on before buying, with a tailor on site. Going to a department store was not an errand, but an experience—the kind people like Kwatra provided.

Yet few foresaw that designers would find ways to connect with consumers directly and, through a series of mergers, become powerful enough to challenge the department stores. Brands worried that department store sales—especially online—would interfere with the strict price discipline and perception of exclusivity on which their success depended. Some brands began pulling their products from department stores altogether.

Saks fought back, purchasing Neiman Marcus and becoming Saks Global in a July 2024 deal, hoping that together they would have more leverage with brands. Executives put on a strong face. But behind the scenes, Saks had a crisis on its hands. Suppliers weren’t getting paid. Smaller companies couldn’t take the hit. Designer brands began refusing to send merchandise to the stores.

Kwatra, who earned commission from his sales, felt the successive hits the company was taking. Over the previous few years, he had started talking about a move within the company. He thought Saks Global would be an opportunity to expand into international markets, but when he received notice that he would no longer be able to take clients to Paris Fashion Week, he began to take more seriously an offer he had gotten from a competitor.

The merger may have affected Kwatra in another way. One Saks employee theorized it may have been the Neiman deal that set everything into motion. “If this merger with Neiman’s had not happened, it never would have come to light, because I think when Neiman’s came in, they started looking at the books and exploring. I think that’s when it really started to crumble.”

Kwatra claims that Saks heard about his outside offer and tried to retain him with a $50,000 bonus. When he didn’t accept, he says, it became clear he was leaving. He believes Saks knew that if its top earner left, he’d be taking the “city’s elite” with him.

His theory is simple: An already spiraling Saks couldn’t afford that hit, so they tried to destroy his reputation and keep his clients. Kwatra—the man who had operated in the gray zone for two decades, whose arrangements with Saks had seemed to be more handshake than policy—made an easy target.

Photo by Joanne Rathe/the Boston Globe via Getty Images

Tiffany Ortiz was one of Kwatra’s many boldface clients.

Kwatra’s since-deleted Instagram account was my first introduction to his aesthetically dark and dazzling world. There, in video reels set to Kesha dance tracks—do I have your attention?—and Chris Brown instrumentals—gimme that—he could be seen in jewel-encrusted velvet sport coats with a string of colorful gems down his chest, glittering turtlenecks, and an array of black leather statement boots, posing, hip cocked to the side, in Italy and Paris. Then there was his Facebook account. In one video, he is clad in a leather trench coat, posing in an open elevator and strutting down a hall, a lobster-shaped Louis Vuitton clutch—complete with dangling claws and a rumored price tag of $18,000—in his hand. “Have your people call my people,” his bio read.

So I did. Joe Baerlein, a crisis communications adviser, got back to me and set up a meeting at the Post Office Square offices of Goulston & Storrs, where Kwatra’s lawyer, Jennifer Furey—who is representing him in a civil complaint against Saks—is a director.

Kwatra did not disappoint. I found him in the lobby, where most of the couches and chairs are white leather, wearing a black fox-fur coat, an R13 cardigan—distressed, black, and covered in chains and safety pins—and black patent platform cowboy-style heels with a gem-encrusted toe. He clutched a small silver lunchbox-shaped purse, “FENDI” printed in bold across the bag. His wrists were wrapped in bangles that chimed as he shook my hand.

Kwatra told me he is innocent. The charges are bogus. This is not a story about a thief, he insisted—it is a story about a flailing corporation that knew about and encouraged the very practices for which it later fired him. They did it, he believed, because they feared he would leave and take his client book with him. When asked about Kwatra’s allegations, Saks only said: “We take any allegations of employee misconduct seriously and conduct thorough investigations when matters are brought to our attention.”

Kwatra described the moment he was standing there in his purple python-print puffer, a bag of Chanel knits in hand, when the “mall cops”—as Baerlein calls them—led him into a secluded office, through a door with a lock code he didn’t know. There were no security cameras documenting what unfolded, Kwatra noted. The omission, he claims, was to ensure there was no record of what happened.

At first, Kwatra told me, he had no idea where the conversation was going. Wade explicitly mentioned that he knew Kwatra was in talks about employment elsewhere, insisted Kwatra knew why he was there, and said that if he didn’t come clean, Saks would destroy his reputation and ensure he never worked in luxury retail again. Kwatra felt “trapped.” (Wade directed all inquiries about this case to Saks public relations. Wells declined to comment.)

Then, Kwatra says, the conversation turned to gift cards. He would go on to be accused of mismanaging $50,000 worth of promotional cards. Kwatra said he didn’t understand what they were asking about—in Kwatra’s court filings, he noted the cards were generated by his supervisors in management. Kwatra himself couldn’t generate gift cards, and Saks knew it. Kwatra’s court filings also claimed that his manager and previous manager created numerous “accommodation” gift cards and encouraged salespeople to distribute them to high-spending clients. His manager at the time, Kwatra alleged in court filings, was generous with gift cards and “frequently provided them to clients and club stylists.”

As for the accusation that Kwatra kept unclaimed merchandise or returned it in exchange for gift cards for himself—he’d eventually be accused of doing this with $375,000 worth of merchandise—Kwatra claims everything was known to management. There was a lot of unclaimed merchandise lying around storage closets, he says, and after a year, Saks managers told him and other stylists to distribute it as gifts to clients or take it home. He alleges that they encouraged him to wear the items at events or on social media to promote Saks and the brands. It was better to take the abandoned merchandise for personal use rather than reselling it at a deep discount or donating it, he says management told him.

A Saks employee pushed back on this, saying no one else had a designated room full of merchandise like Kwatra did, and that it was odd that all the billing problems people complained about seemed to happen only to him. (Kwatra says he had more merchandise because he had more clients, and that billing issues were a broader problem at Saks, and no fault of his own.) But the employee agreed with Kwatra on one point: Whatever was going on, management knew about it. “I’m just saying that the executives were also complicit. I mean, they allowed it to continue to happen. And in a small way, I even think they sort of encouraged it.”

Back in that room without any cameras, Kwatra says, Wade claimed to have a folder of “evidence” on Kwatra but refused to show him the contents. Wade claimed that Saks had been building a case against Kwatra for more than eight years—though Kwatra points out that they had offered him a retention bonus just weeks earlier and repeatedly praised his value to the company.

Kwatra recalls that they wanted him to guess the cumulative value of all the unclaimed merchandise he had turned into gift cards over the years—in writing—and they would “make it ugly” for him if he refused. “In my mind, when I heard that ‘make it ugly,’ I’m thinking, if I don’t sign this document, I’m gonna be handcuffed in the store.” The visual impact would have been immediately devastating.

Kwatra says they told him that if he confessed, they wouldn’t call the police—no one external would have to know. So he started writing. “Anytime I wrote something that didn’t really align with them, they would make me cross it out and be like, ‘No, no, no, cross that off and write this instead,’” he said. (By presstime, Saks had not responded to questions about Kwatra’s claim that he was coerced into writing the document.) Kwatra didn’t know the letter was legally enforceable. He figured he could get an attorney later, and if he signed, he could leave with his reputation intact.

That’s not what happened. When Kwatra was done, his store director came in, and he signed papers agreeing not to return to Saks. Then a police officer entered the room. Kwatra’s Prada tote was collected from his office, and he was escorted out of the building. “Do we have to make a scene?” Kwatra asked as he was led out. “Because I thought no one’s gonna make a scene.”

Kwatra personally selected jewelry, shoes, bags, and clothing for Boston’s elite. Along the way, he became a fixture among them. / Photo by Joanne Rathe/the Boston Globe via Getty Images

On a frigid January morning, Kwatra arrived at Boston Municipal Court near Haymarket for his arraignment on larceny and fraud charges. The date had been pushed back once already, and socialites had been calling me about it for weeks, wondering how the first scene of this legal drama might unfold. When the day came, Kwatra appeared in a relatively demure Hugo Boss blazer—black with a silver-tipped collar—and Alexander Wang boots in some kind of reptile skin. He looked smaller than usual in low-cut heels. Local TV crews arrived five minutes too late. I was the only reporter in the room.

After sitting through a morning robbery hearing involving an opioid-addicted amateur hockey player, Kwatra stood before the court, his face deflated, as the prosecutor read the charges alleging that he had appropriated $429,400 via “fraudulent returns and mismanagement.” The hearing did not go well for the state. The prosecutor requested $5,000 cash bail in what she said was a case carrying “state prison time” and asked that Kwatra be ordered to stay away from former clients. But Judge Paul Treseler released Kwatra without bail and ordered only that he stay away from Saks property and employees.

Then came another blow to the prosecution. Kwatra’s criminal defense attorney, Joseph Eisenstadt, demanded to see specific evidence to support the more than $429,000 figure—and Treseler agreed. Saks had turned over video evidence and records from three recent transactions, purportedly totaling more than $11,000 in fraud, but nothing else. “It looks like an $11,000 case right now,” the judge said, questioning the state’s evidence—as if “someone just threw a $429,000 figure out there.… You come up with that big number, and you have to explain the big number and explain where that number came from.” The prosecutor conceded that Saks had not yet provided the state with any additional evidence. Beyond Kwatra’s handwritten confession, the prosecution could not explain the number either. The judge ordered the state to turn over the evidence before the end of March; the next hearing is April 10.

Weeks earlier, it had been a very different scene. Kwatra stumbled out of Saks in his Gucci platform clogs, dazed. His phone died, so he couldn’t reach his partner, Michael, a music teacher who was teaching a class that evening. It wasn’t until he caught a cab and made it home to his Fenway apartment that the reality of what had happened hit Kwatra. He recalls feeling as though he “got hit by a bus.”

Then Kwatra mentioned the letter to his partner. “I wasn’t thinking. I maybe signed something,” he told Michael, who started freaking out.

“Where is the document?” Michael asked.

Kwatra told Michael they didn’t give him a copy.

“Why didn’t they give you a copy?”

The next morning, Kwatra called Jennifer Clark, a client who also happened to be general counsel at the commercial real estate firm RMR Group and was nearing retirement. Clark thought the absence of a copy was strange. The charges didn’t make sense, she says, because Kwatra’s assistants rang in the merchandise—“so there would have to be a conspiracy.” (Kwatra’s supervising manager, who was on maternity leave at the time of his firing, was due back in December. She has not returned to work and did not respond to my inquiries.) Clark sprang into action, connecting Kwatra with a civil attorney, who in turn connected him with a criminal attorney and crisis manager. Two weeks later, Kwatra attended a party thrown by Clark at Contessa—Kwatra in a long-sleeve fishnet top with shoulder pads and glittering silver pants, as seen in a screenshot from an Instagram story that was promptly passed around town. He was not hiding.

Meanwhile, Kwatra’s attorneys at Goulston & Storrs have filed a civil claim against Saks Global alleging that the company owes Kwatra punitive and compensatory damages for firing him, ruining his reputation, and false imprisonment for holding him in the interrogation room. The lawsuit calls it “a calculated campaign by a global luxury retailer to silence one of its most valuable employees” while attempting to “shift blame amid severe financial distress.” But perhaps Kwatra’s strongest argument is this: Why would Saks offer him a retention bonus in October if the company claims to have evidence of him conducting fraudulent returns in September? (Saks declined to comment on Kwatra’s claim that he was offered a retention bonus, as well as many of the allegations set forth in this story.)

Then I discovered something startling: Kwatra wasn’t the only stylist Saks had allegedly gone after.

In May 2025, Antonio Ferreira—reportedly a leading personal shopper at Saks Beverly Hills—claims he was also pulled into a room by asset protection and accused of involvement in improper use of gift cards. Ferreira filed a lawsuit against Saks three months later, alleging discrimination, defamation, and a hostile work environment, claiming the charges were brought in retaliation and that they stand “in stark contrast to Saks’ tolerance of similar conduct by others,” the complaint reads—including by management itself.

Both of these lawsuits are on pause due to Saks filing for bankruptcy. But on Newbury Street, the question isn’t really about the legal case—it’s about what happens next in a town that just lost the man who told it what to wear. Gala season is here, and this article comes out in the first days of it. Some women may be scrambling to find dresses—yet the ones who’ve been around Boston forever aren’t too worried. Kwatra was the one who created the pressure—new, avant-garde, no repeats. Turns out it’s more Brahmin, and more contemporary, to re-wear an old outfit. “You even get bragging rights if you can fit into a dress from 10 years ago,” says one gala regular.

Still, not everyone has moved on. Madhu Chopra, for one, remains loyal—calling Kwatra “impeccable and forthright” in a statement provided by her niece. Real estate developer Deborah George is also unwavering. She has been devoted to Kwatra for more than a decade, ever since he told her that her Ralph Lauren outfit looked “awful” and switched her over to Dolce & Gabbana. She insists that the allegations against Kwatra came about because Saks was “scared that he was going to leave.” In George’s eyes, Kwatra “is not a man who’s driven by money at all. This is a man who’s driven by things that we Americans don’t always put great value into. You know, honesty, beauty, art forms, things like that. I’ve never known him to be money hungry.”

Others have not been so generous. A group excursion Kwatra had organized to India—costing tens of thousands a head—fell apart when his clients backed out after news of Kwatra’s legal troubles broke. They want their money back. Kwatra says he told them to buy travel insurance at the outset and isn’t responsible for their decision to back out; in any event, he says, their beef is with the travel agency. He says he didn’t profit from the trip.

And then there are those who suspect Kwatra will somehow come out ahead of where he started. One former client called the whole saga his “sex tape”—a spectacle he’d find a way to profit from. Several compared him to Anna Delvey, the fake socialite who parlayed infamy into a Netflix deal. They wonder whether Kwatra will do the same.

As for Kwatra, he wants to keep doing what he loves—styling women of taste, like his fashion icons Daphne Guinness, Maye Musk, and Moza bint Nasser. He says the job offer he received from a Saks competitor was rescinded, and he’s thinking of a life beyond Boston, hopefully somewhere abroad. But as Baerlein, his crisis manager, says, it’s hard to plan a future “when you’ve had so many of these false accusations thrown at you in a short period of time.”

Asked how it feels to go from the center of Boston society to the fringes, Kwatra rolled his eyes. “In fashion,” he told me, “like they say—one day you’re in, one day you’re out.”

Kwatra dressed the city’s most important galas and fundraisers. / Courtesy photo

This article was first published in the print edition of the March 2026 issue with the headline: “”Tragic!”.”

Should Actual Bostonians Ever Go to Cheers, Faneuil Hall, or Mike’s Pastry?

Camille Dodero — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:52 +0000

Illustration by Dale Stephanos

Welcome to “The Salty Cod,” a monthly column in which humorist Steve Calechman grapples with uniquely New England dilemmas.

Yes, but they don’t, because these places are touristy, which means they’re crowded, and also pretty cheesy. But that’s exactly why we should go more often than we do. We all need more cheese in our lives. After all, the beauty of pretending you’re on vacation in your own city is that there are no chores, errands, or judging eyes. So yeah, “I’m gonna get a box of cannoli.” (That’s the plural, by the way; cannolo, the singular, before you ask.)

Of course, we’re not on vacation. We live here, and that’s the problem.

Some denial is in play. We scoff at these places. We say that we hate them, but…“They’re still ours. They still belong to us,” says Leora Lanz, associate professor of marketing at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. And in that way, they’re like our relatives. We’ll rip them, mock them, never visit them—but if attacked or slighted, we’ll defend and defend hard. Yeah, it might be lame, but is your town the inspiration for the best sitcom ever? Didn’t think so.

It also doesn’t help that we got old. At one time, Faneuil Hall was fresh and cool and exciting, but you know what? So were we, and we can’t recapture that thrill anymore, so it’s easier to stay away. But the younger generation doesn’t care about any of our stuff. They just want to go there, or to Mike’s, or even Cheers, because they’ve never been, and where else are you gonna see it? It’s the same thing we do when we visit Abbey Road or Philadelphia and take yet another photo crossing the street or running up steps. Unoriginal? Less than cultured? Oh yeah. More fun than a museum? Oh yeah again.

And sure, we resent the tourists. They meander, ask questions, and don’t know when to turn. But mostly, it’s because they’re having a good time on a weekday in our town, when we should be the ones having the fun, because we’re goddamned fun people.

So here’s a challenge. Go to these cheesy, overrun places. Maybe Mayor Michelle Wu will make it an official campaign, Discover Your Boston, though she probably won’t. (But she should.) And one of two things will happen. They’ll either blow, and you’ll be proven right—and we love nothing more than being right. Or they might be good, and then you’d have to let yourself enjoy it. A hard concept to swallow, but one made easier with a cannolo. Or better yet, six.

Got a question for the Salty Cod? Send it to editor@bostonmagazine.com.

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