Equal Admissions

TODAY 1336 members of the Class of 1971 will receive their Harvard diplomas, among them 270 Radcliffe women. Many of these, both women and men, will be participating in a quiet protest asking equal admissions to Harvard. We fully support them in this demand, and urge the Harvard administration-particularly President-designate Derek Bok-to consider seriously the issues raised.

We further urge our classmates to recognize the importance of the whole question of women at Harvard, and to support the protest by wearing the armbands and silk screenings that have been distributed during the past week.

It hardly seems necessary to reiterate the point that Harvard should accept more women: to do otherwise is to maintain that one half of humanity is less worthy of receiving an education than the other. Yet Harvard officials continue to raise objections on precisely this point. Again and again, we are told that Harvard has a duty to provide the nation with leaders, and leaders, it is assumed, will by definition be men.

An attitude like this is difficult to combat. If Harvard's goal is to turn out leaders for a society which discriminates against women, must Harvard then discriminate against women? Much more appropriate, it would seem-particularly for an institution which prides itself on the quality of its education-would be an attempt to effect some change on society's imbalances.

It is not at all clear, however, that Harvard is interested in making such changes. The 4-to-1 ratio here is hardly an isolated inequity: women are treated as second class at every level of the University. Women hold few major teaching appointments, including only two full professorships; they are clustered around the off-ladder positions which seldom lead to professional advancement. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare this year required Harvard to submit a plan to correct discrimination in its employment practices. And when students protested the pay differential between male and female cooks in Radcliffe kitchens, a Radcliffe official explained, "But there's a long tradition of male superiority."

NOT long ago Radcliffe was simply the "Harvard annex," and we've hardly come all that far since. The Committee on the Status of Women recently reported that women-both faculty and students-feel they are "intruders in a male institution." Such a feeling is hardly surprising, shared as it is by many Harvard officials who protest against educating women at the "expense" of men. Sadly enough, it is not unlikely that the Harvard dean who described Radcliffe alumnae as "bright, well-educated, but relatively dull housewives" was expressing the feelings of many of his colleagues as well.

Even those who basically accept the ideal of equality in education protest that Harvard can literally not afford to accept more women: women do not donate huge sums to alumni funds. This argument can be discredited on at least two counts. In the first place, the situation will change as women assume their rightful earning power in our country; women will give more once giving is no longer considered the rightful province of men. Secondly-and much more important-Harvard has a responsibility to initiate the change. If Harvard is going to continue to maintain its own image as a leader, it cannot placidly reflect the social definitions of our society. It will fail in its traditional role as an educational innovator if it does.

What it comes down to is simple: are women as worthy of receiving an education as men, or are they not? If Harvard agrees that they are, then there is-no excuse for postponing the institution of a one-to-one ratio any longer. If Harvard decides that they are not, then the future of Harvard as a viable institution is doomed.