Earlier this week, the Harvard Institute of Politics announced a list of Visiting Fellows who had been invited to the campus to speak during the 2017-2018 academic year, and among them were ousted White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and recently imprisoned Wikileaker turned trans hero Chelsea Manning. The inclusion of Manning set off a "firestorm" in intelligence and conservative circles, as Fox News reports, prompting current CIA director Mike Pompeo to write an open letter to the university cancelling a scheduled speech Thursday because he wanted no association with "American traitor" Manning.

"[It's] a decision I did not make lightly," Pompeo wrote, "[but] my conscience and duty to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency will not permit me to betray their trust by appearing to support Harvard's decision with my appearance at tonight's event."

Also on Thursday, former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell resigned his position as a fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, in protest of Manning's fellowship honor.

Late last night, Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the university's John F. Kennedy School of Government, posted a statement to the school's website clarifying that while they were not rescinding Manning's invitation to speak, they were rescinding the perceived "honorific" that is the Visiting Fellow title.

"We invited Chelsea Manning to spend a day at the Kennedy School," Elmendorf wrote. "On that basis, we also named Chelsea Manning a Visiting Fellow. We did not intend to honor her in any way or to endorse any of her words or deeds, as we do not honor or endorse any Fellow."

He further clarified, "At any point in time, the Kennedy School has hundreds of Fellows playing many different roles at the School," and if they're invited for more than a few hours they are designated as "Visiting Fellows," "Resident Fellows," "Nonresident Fellows," "Research Fellows," and other titles. And that Manning was being invited to the school's Forum so that students could "ask hard questions and challenge what she has said and done." Elmendorf called the Visiting Fellow designation a "mistake" in retrospect, because of the endorsement it implied of Manning's actions when she was a US soldier who leaked a trove of classified material.

The Visiting Fellow program, according to the university, is intended to provide "thought-provoking viewpoints" for students from "experts, leaders and policy-shapers."

In reaction, Manning posted to Twitter:

The ACLU continues their support of Manning, and her longtime advocate and attorney at the ACLU, Chase Strangio, issued a statement on Harvard's decision saying, in part, "It doesn't surprise me that an institution that has produced many of our most dangerous war criminals & architects of our military & prison apparatuses would remain beholden to the state. Yet the decision to withdraw Chelsea Manning's visiting fellowship in the middle of the night without coherent explanation is disgraceful even for Harvard."

Manning, 29, has slowly been emerging from her four-year imprisonment and into a public life she may have never expected to have. She spoke to a small gathering of hackers and tech folk in San Francisco on Tuesday night, and wrote a thoughtful (and dark!) op-ed in the New York Times that was published Wednesday on the topic of Big Data and the creeping threats to all of our information and privacy.

Manning was released from federal prison in May following a commuting of her sentence by President Obama. She served four years of a 35-year sentence for espionage, and had made at least one attempt at suicide while in jail as she complained that she was not being allowed to groom or present as female while in a male prison.

Previously: Chelsea Manning Appears In SF, Speaks Out On Privacy In New York Times

Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a regular series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist every other Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

View the map of all published Blocker episodes.

Blocker, No. 32: Bay St. in the Marina

(Harvard.)

In an imaginary world where San Francisco neighborhoods are represented by stars’ hairstyles, the Marina is Bryan Ferry – artfully coiffed, with a subtle smattering of muss to keep the wispy-haired skeptics on their toes. Bay St. between Broderick and Baker, on the western edge of the Marina, embodies this aesthetic as well as any residential block in the district.

Since nothing remotely unusual appears to happen here much – short of the odd cataclysmic earthquake and subsequent fire (see: October 1989) – it’s up to the block’s architecture, immaculately trimmed foliage, and occasional through-walker to provide a bit of Blocker-style backbone. Otherwise, we’re relegated to a piece about all the college alumni license plate frames and window decals slapped on cars parked along this street. Not such an enticing slant.

-- Watch out, SF. Last night's armed robbery spree shakes up, shakes down residents. [SF Crime, SFGate]

-- Ding, ding: bike rally at City Hall. [Left in SF]

-- Your Contemporary Jewish Museum. [Curbed]

-- At Harvard U seasons change, feelings change. [Beyond Chron]

-- "Come on feel the Noyes." [I'll Flip You]

-- Top Bay Area noisemakers of 2007. [SFBG]

-- This morning's police chase/fatal accident killed two, including Benjamin Bratt's nephew, Kristopher. [SFGate]

LAist saw national headlines soar this week with news about the Jena 6 in Louisiana and of a police taser incident at a John Kerry event. Locally, Hollywood protesters marched in support of the Jena 6 and Orange County deputies tasered a 15-year-old autistic boy (good job guys). Speaking of Orange County and suburban areas, ABC's Desperate Housewives has a new marketing technique: advertise on the white stripes that define a parking space (we're still not going to watch). In the restaurant scene, what's going over at the California Pizza Kitchen?

Bostonist got a crash course in what not to do this week. They discovered a Craigslist post from a Harvard Man who might be worse at dating than Tom Brady is. One woman attempted to evade the long arm of the law by hiding in a clothes dryer. It didn't work. And the Red Sox are showing Bostonist nothing but suckage, suckage, and more suckage. But then an MIT student came along and topped just about everybody when she walked into Logan Airport with a fake bomb strapped to her chest. Bostonist is still trying to comprehend that one. The Aqua Teen Guys are not available for comment.

DCist suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Senate Republicans this week, when they voted not to allow legislation to give the District a voting member of the House of Representatives to go forward. They spent the rest of the week consoling themselves by comparing the best wood-fired pizzas in town and complaining about the city's terrible traffic ranking. They also discovered the greatest web site ever and questioned the police department's account of the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy.

Torontoist used their users to get tons of shots of the filming of the Incredible Hulk (the sequel, not the old one), continued their love affair with Final Fantasy (the singer, not the video game), found out that Nelly Furtado is persona non grata at Rain (the restaurant, not the precipitation) and wondered about pornography (the church-mandated kind, not the hell-bound stuff).

Bad series of news items for the SFPD -- the rookie cop who accidentally shot himself at a party earlier this month when trying to demonstrate tips on gun safety was legally drunk (just barely), that cop, Jesse Serna, who keeps (allegedly) beating up people like Barry Bonds' trainer and Willie Brown's friends in North Beach just got the city sued again, this time for beating up a doctor starting his residency at Harvard (whose case was previously profiled by the Chron.)

Ommmmmmmm-igosh! A lady accidentally set her Sausalito house on fire while meditating. Well, she had lit all the candles to meditate, then left the house, and came back and the living room was on fire.

And HEY!!! You know we love the LOLCAT hilarity of perennial commenter-of-the-week KWillets, right? Well, he's on ABC 7!!! As you guys may know, KWillets has been running a camera outside his house to monitor criminal activities in the housing project across the street. Well, last night, the camera caught a guy mugging a woman (a tourist). KWillets turned in the footage and the SFPD (gasp!) made an arrest. Yay!!! We love it when SFist readers get in the news!!!! Plus: KWillets is a hero. Watch the clip here.

It's KWillets!!!! We're so proud!!!!

Standing atop the Moscone Center this afternoon, S.F. Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting announced the creation of the San Francisco Solar Task Force. It plans to issue a set of recommendations to assist San Franciscans who want to go solar. Phil pointed out the confusing choices consumers have when they want to get into solar. He said it was relatively easy for him to buy his hybrid gas/electric car because he knew he could simply go to a Toyota dealership, but consumers who want to lower their electricity bills through photovoltaics have a much more complicated task. He said existing state and federal incentives to assist consumers could be complimented by local programs.

The task force plans to issue a full report of their recommendations in June. We’ll keep you posted. A little more info on this issue after the jump.

We have been totally obsessed with Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan's woes. Every day, we would think, Bostonist is so lucky. Isn't there any connection here to the Bay Area?

Well, now we have one! And for our Assembly District 12 Ma v. Ja column, no less! State legislator (and former child actor) Sheila Kuehl has accused Janet Reilly of plagiarizing Kuehl's health care proposal and claiming it was her (Reilly's) own. Get Kissed Get Wild!

Reilly claims it's not true, and that Kuehl is supporting "Sacramento interests" who want Ma elected over her. Kuehl requested that a reporter asking her about that allegation say, "make sure to say that I laughed uproariously at that," claiming that Sacramento interests hate her (Kuehl). Given that Kuehl's other big news is that she's trying to get gay history into textbooks, we believe Kuehl on that one.

Matier and Ross report that Reilly says she might have used some of Kuehl's ideas, but it's all footnoted in her proposal. Reilly also says at least she has a health care plan, unlike Fiona Ma.

So what's going on? Did Reilly actually get kissed and get wild? We do a little investigation into the claims, after the jump. Only a little, though.

Lee's first feature film, played on Saturday and after seeing Grain in the Ear boy were we ready for something completely different. Red Doors is the director's vaguely autobiographical story of a modern Chinese-American family in crisis—three daughters and their father are all tangling with their personal demons. The eldest daughter, played by Jaqueline Kim is the proto-typical type-A achiever. Her impending marriage to an equally resume-perfect ivy-leaguer is thrown into question when she encounters her ex-boyfriend, a scruffy musician type who plunks out mellow Jack Johnson-esque tunes on his acoustic guitar. Her father's retirement exacerbates what appears to be some sort of existential crisis/depressive episode, meanwhile the middle sister is either having a sexual epiphany or finally acting on one (we weren't quite sure which) and the youngest sister (played by the filmmaker's own youngest sister) is engaged in an escalating prank-war with the object of her desire.

SFist MiHi Ahn, contributing

Image from Red Doors