HARVARD'S CHOICE

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The two newest student movements at Harvard--the Teaching Fellows Union and the Pan-African Liberation Committee--seem to have quite different notions about how Harvard should use its vast resources. The Union wants Harvard to improve the financial status of graduate students: PALC wants it to sacrifice some investment income--in effect another way to use resources--in order that its investments have a less regressive impact on the world social structure.

The University owes its graduate students the obligation not to change their financial position significantly from what they reasonably could have expected it to be when they originally decided to come here. The precipitous elimination of the Staff Tuition Fellowships does precisely that and is, therefore, wrong. But once the University has fulfilled this obligation, it does not have a further obligation to provide high scholarships, low tuition, or high Teaching Fellow salaries.

There are several different ways in which Harvard can use its financial resources to try to make the world a better place. These include trying to have a good impact on surrounding communities, providing scholarships to underprivileged students, paying high wages to employees who have relatively low lifetime earnings potential, supporting certain kinds of research, and directing its investments into socially progressive industries. In my opinion, improving the financial position of most graduate students, who rank in the top 2 per cent of the country in social class, race, education, IQ, and the other determinants of earnings potential, is a low priority item. The Teaching Fellows Union should formulate demands that take into account some such sense of priorities. James W. Wetzler   Teaching Fellow in Economics