Give to the Biko Fund

TWO WEEKS AGO, seniors received the first of what will be many requests for contributions to the University. According to the letter from the Senior Gift Committee, the class gift is "one way [seniors] can act together to continue [their] college ties."

The senior class should indeed act together by boycotting the regular senior gift and contributing only to the Steven Biko Fund. Giving money to the University would show support for the amorality of President Bok's March 9 letter to the Harvard community, for the obfuscation of the Corporation in naming the Engelhard Library, and for the University's consistent disregard of student opinion in almost every major issue from South African investments to the Core Curriculum.

There is a certain irony in the University's avid solicitation of funds from students whom it has patronized and ignored in the past. But seniors should not underestimate the seriousness of the appeal or the opportunity for an effective statement that it provides. The Corporation understands the language of money very well, much better than it seems to understand the language of "reasoned debate."

Donations to the Steven Biko Fund will provide scholarships for black South Africans to come to Harvard. Earmarking gifts for the regular scholarship fund, an option proposed by the Senior Gift Committee to those who feel they should not give freely to the University, will have minimal impact. Money contributed to the scholarship fund only means that the University will draw less for scholarships from the unrestricted General Fund. Donors are filling the same tub, just from a different side.

A gift to the Biko Fund (which is described more fully in a letter sent to seniors April 24) would be a tangible contribution to South African blacks, and a demonstration--in terms the Corporation understands--that the Class of '79 refuses to support Harvard's involvement with apartheid.