Disagrees With Mr. Train

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I am glad to see that Mr. Jon P. C. Train finds the Student Council's concern with discrimination in the College amusing. This confirms an old opinion that the members of the Lampoon see humor in things which are not at all funny to other people.

He is, of course, right in asserting that no one has the power to control by legislation the associates of an individual or group of individuals except where the controversy centers around public funds or facilities. And he is beyond any possible shadow of a doubt correct in asserting that the clubs would continue to exclude persons on grounds of race and religion despite any attempt to control such discrimination by means of Councilar bulls.

Mr. Train fails to see, however that he and/or the clubs have no moral right to judge the merit of a person or his ability to fit into a given social situation by such artificial and worthless criteria as those of race and color. If these discriminating persons consider themselves reasonable and intellectually sound, or if they think that maintenance of their right to discriminate is an assertion of sound thinking or intellectual independence, they are deluding themselves.

They are basing this intellectually sound distinction between public and private rights on premises which are false. They are setting up for themselves criteria which not only prevent them from exercising true independence of action, but which also set them apart from and make enemies of those who do follow criteria of justice and reason. The elimination of these discriminatory clauses voluntarily would make it possible for justice and reason to be exercised by the clubs and clubmen.

I personally doubt that many of the Negroes, Jews, and Catholics at Harvard wholeheartedly desire to ally themselves with the dying remarks of a better-forgotten era. The changing social situation at Harvard has made this unnecessary, even undesirable. Such an act on the part of the clubs would be of little or no favor to the excluded persons. It would return the clubs to a position where an intellectually honest person could join them without qualms. And, with Amherst and Dartmouth fraternities (more important to the social lives of those schools than the clubs are to Harvard) dropping the discriminatory clauses, such an act would return Harvard to a position where, it could be respected as intellectually just and honest. B. Robert Carman '61.