IV: Boys and Girls Together

Of all the problems which have arisen in the last few years to goad the Dean's Office into drawing up new rules for undergraduate organizations, Radcliffe girls and their relation to student groups at Harvard are by far the most pressing.

Joint instruction brought this situation to a climax, though it had cropped up before the war. Drama groups, for instance, had often become engaged in tiffs about the use of Radcliffe girls in their plays, though generally it was Radcliffe officials with whom they had to deal. And a short-lived rival of the CRIMSON, The Harvard Journal, which was founded in 1934, had over a dozen Radcliffe members on its staff. It had to bargain with Radcliffe officialdom to get these members, but it never sought official Harvard approval and Harvard officials never interfered. Today, an organization seeking Radcliffe personnel comes under the closest Dean's Office scrutiny.

The change in attitude has come because of two reactions to joint instruction. The Radcliffe Dean's Office fears that because of joint instruction Radcliffe will lose its separate identity. To prevent this, it wishes to support separate Radcliffe extra-curricular activities. But since it realizes that girls may not stick with Annex groups if they can join corresponding Harvard organizations, it wishes to prevent the Harvard groups from having Radcliffe members. It also fears that Radcliffe members of Harvard organizations will have a second-class citizen status, and will actually be "used" by the Harvard groups.

The Harvard Dean's Office, on the other hand, fears that Harvard will lose its all-male flavor if Radcliffe girls are included in Harvard organizations. The classroom has been lost, but student groups must not be. There are many in the University hierarchy who feel sure that closer union of Harvard-Radcliffe student groups is inevitable, but the men who are most directly in charge of extra-curricular activities intend to stave off this "wave of the future" if they can.

The membership rules-requiring 100 percent Harvard members and thus excluding Radcliffe girls--have in part been this Radcliffe problem. Another manifestation of this problem can be found in the Dean's Office assertion that it has the right to regulate Radcliffe non-members working for Harvard groups.

Thus the Dean's Office, because of its fear of merger of Harvard-Radcliffe student activities, has limited the students' own freedom of decision on the problem. Its pattern of action is identical to that shown by its reactions to the problem of post-war political tensions, bad debts, and public relations.

This pattern has been for the Dean's Office to take on responsibilities which in the thirties were assumed to belong to the student groups. Tomorrow's editorial, the last in this series, will consider whether this assumption of responsibility--and the right to supervision and control which is derived from it--is a desirable one for Harvard.