Make Harvard Safe For Hippies

Harvard is losing its rep. Rumors have it that the Admissions Department is running scared because some of the best minds of this generation are passing up the golden opportunity to come to Harvard. "The action ain't in the East," one beeded guru was quoted as saying when he turned Harvard down for Berkeley.

Gone are the days when the opprobrium of the national press was focused on Harvard. Four years ago the Record American could run as their lead story: "Harvard Bares Wild Parties, Dean's Report Fears Sex Scandal." Today the headlines are about Haight-Ashbury.

Something must be done to stop the trend; we cannot afford to sit quietly as Harvard drifts into complacency. Last year, despite the efforts of a cadre of agitators, the best that happened was the near trampling of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

This year we have to have some results--otherwise Harvard will lose its standing with the alienated and will begin to attract normal people.

Imagine the disaster, if you started seeing normal people in the Square. What a disgrace that the hippies who congregate in the new park outside of Holyoke Center aren't indigenous. Administrators are beginning to say that "it can't happen here"; that Harvard--with 331 years of tradition--won't freak out.

To be honest, the picture may not be entirely gray. Last year we had a series of second-rate Be-Ins which could blossom into something this year. Furthermore, hippies got a toe-hold in Cambridge real-estate when James Calvert '67 bought a store-front on Mt. Auburn Street and turned it into an exotic coffee-house, restaurant called El Diablo.

Student Venture

This particular kind of venture should be encouraged, because it allows students to meet, eat, talk and plot in an atmosphere which isn't haunted by the spectre of the University. Students could set up other businesses and under-cut the outrageous over-pricing, thus performing an important service for their colleagues.

One of the real problems with making a scene at Harvard is that, by and large, the administrators and school officials are both intelligent and liberal. Although at first glance this might appear an asset which would allow a strong hippie element to emerge, in the final analysis Harvard's liberalism takes the wind out of potential protest issues. For instance how can you stage a "sleep-in" when parietals are constantly being liberalized. Last year proved that University officials are not apt to make any of the same kind of disasterous mistakes that Kerr made in Berkeley. During the McNamara demonstration Dean Monro was enlightened enough to know that if he called the police in to get the demonstration under control, he would have had a full scale riot on his hands.

If Harvard ever gave the slightest excuse, students would be sitting in the Administration building within hours--just out of boredom. Ideally, of course, the students won't wait for an administrative foul-up; they would make whatever inroads possible into the Harvard decision making process to make sure that their own interests are represented.

But why try to change Harvard, why try to gain some control of the University? From the first it must be clear that there is a crucial distinction between hippies and radicals. Hippies are radical in their way of life -- they are alienated from the norms of society on a full-time basis. Radicals, on the other hand, are activists who are less concerned with their effectiveness in bringing about change.

But this doesn't mean that the two groups are mutually exclusive. In fact, hippies thrive best at a University in which the activists have a maximum of power; while activists seem to be most effective at a university which has a large hippy population. Each group helps the other--the hippies provide the life style and atmosphere while the activists bring about the changes which allow their wigged-out brethren to survive.

Part-time Hippies

It must be admitted, however, that the situation is not nearly as clear cut at Harvard. Here we have part-time hippies and activists. Rarely does one find a full full-time hippy simply because it would be difficult for him to survive the system. Hippies, by now, should have become a recognized element of our generation and the colleges, if they expect to keep them within the system must adapt to them. However, in the last few years it has become apparent that the colleges are not about to make any fundamental changes to accommodate the hippies. The initiative, therefore, must come from the Harvard activists. Yup, they and they alone, can make Harvard safe for hippies.