Asking For the Impossible

"We know we're asking for the impossible." John L. Moore '51, president of the Associated Harvard Alumni, said after last Saturday's AHA meeting. "But we're just going to have to keep working hard for as many of these goals as possible."

As Moore explained it, the AHA supports three basic goals for undergraduate admissions: an increase in the number of women, no decrease in the present number of men and no increase in the total number of undergraduates.

Obviously, if all three of these goals cannot be met, some priorities must be set. And after lauding the philosophy of equal access admissions, the AHA did just as expected: It strongly urged that there be no decrease in the number of men admitted to the College.

The implication of the AHA's recommendation came through load and clear at the meeting. While there appeared to be unanimous agreement that the goal of increasing the number of women undergraduates is a commendable one, it was equally apparent that the AHA sees this as a goal that should in no way hinder the important task of educating Harvard's requisite number of future male leaders.

At a time when Harvard and the Strauch report have been adamant in rejecting quotas as a tool for upping the number of women here, the AHA request essentially boils down to one for maintaining a quota for men and filling out as many additional places as possible with women.

While the AHA professes to favor equal access, it obviously sees equal access as merely the merging of two admissions operations into one and adding a few more women to the student body. This is one of the biggest problems with the Strauch "report itself: everyone who reads the report and who is sold on the idea of equal access envisions something different.

Although he refused to promise the AHA that there will be no cuts in male admissions. President Bok, in addressing the meeting, did not appear too anxious to set the record straight on just what "equal access" is supposed to mean.

Instead, Bok took some of the heat off himself and Karl Strauch, professor of Physics and chairman of the Strauch Committee, by assuring the AHA that equal access will probably not result in a substantial shuffling of undergraduate ratios for at least its first three years anyway.

For all the rhetoric about supporting equal access, the AHA and especially members of the Schools and Scholarships Committee seem more intent on assuring alumni and prospective male applicants around the country that fair Harvard will not decrease their "dockets." In fact, sources said this week. Peter D. Schultz '52, general secretary of the AHA, has already mailed out The Crimson account of the AHA meeting to an irate alumnus as proof that men will continue to receive priority even under "equal access."