Beyond Klein's Case

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The Government Department's recent decision to deny Ethel Klein her last three years of teaching here makes clear once again the University's disregard for the quality of undergraduate-level teaching, its hostility to faculty with progressive or feminist views, and its lack of understanding of the importance of Women's Studies and women professors at Harvard/Radcliffe. Past statements by University officials that a women's studies program can be developed here within the existing departmental framework appears especially fallacious in the face of yet another loss of a woman teaching about, among other things, women.

Klein's non-renewal, moreover, has occurred within a department whose chairman claims it has one of the best records of affirmative action for women; if this is true, then it is a sad statement about the rest of the College, for the Government Department currently has one tenured woman professor.

But the issue raised by the Government Department's decision is much greater than Klein's case alone. What must be addressed is not the possibly politically biased or sexist motivation behind the current decision, but the implications this move has for women and the study of women at the college in general. Ethel Klein is only the most recent un-promoted or un-tenured woman in a long--and distinguished--line of scholars who we feel have been refused a place on the faculty due to their sex, their feminism, and their concern for Women's Studies. A few facts illuminate the larger situation: Of 354 tenured professors, 17 (4 8 percent) are women: despite the rise in women Ph Ds the percentage of women associate and assistant professors has failed to rise steadily over the last five years, and this year is 21 percent compared to 1977's 22 percent.

It is difficult, in the face of this trend, to take seriously the proposition that the introduction of women's studies be left up to individual deprtments, especially considering that no active attempts are being made to replace either women professors or their courses on women. The very fact that the majority of Harvard Radcliffe students have no concept of what women's studies means, or of what could possibly be lacking in a college education which almost completely ignores both the role of women in the world and the basic fact that men and women experience the world in different ways, is more than enough proof that something is amiss here in the hallowed halls of "10,000 Men."

Ethel Klein's situation is not a new one, but that does not lessen our anger and dismay. The University is creating a dangerously self-perpetuating situation, as its refusal to grant scholarship of and by women the respect it deserves makes it increasingly unattractive for people in Women's Studies and female scholars to come here. The development of Women's Studies in the world at large will continue with or without Harvard's approval, and it will be more than a little distressing if the University succeeds in completely cutting itself off from this new field.

Women here are getting tired of being told, in a multitude of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that we are not worth learning from and not worth learning about. We implore the Government Department to reconsider its decision on Klein's contract, or at least to seek someone with a similar commitment to Women's Studies and to undergraduate education to take her place. We ask that all students here, women and men, think a little more deeply about what place women have at Harvard/Radcliffe in the future--both at the lectern and in the syllabus. Toba Spitzer '85   Radcliffe Union of Students