Action Across the Spectrum

BACK IN THE LATE '60s, college campuses were a constant concern for American government and campus administrators. Now, most agree that Harvard and other campuses have become less reactionary and that students devote more time to community concerns and working to reform the status quo. In short, students are interested in working within the system, not against it.

But what does that mean? If campuses are no longer hotbeds of activism, what are student politics about? At Harvard, student political organizations range from left to right, from groups associated with a political party to those which focus on specific issues. Of 150 student groups, 13 to 15 could be called politically active.

While few groups have a guiding political ideology, most of the more active organizations are oriented to the left of mainstream politics.

Student activism, says Dean of Student Archie C. Epps III "has never disappeared from American colleges," as some would believe. Rather, "in a year of presidential campaigning, party-related groups are quite active, and campaign work is quite classic." Issue-oriented groups which have sprung up over the past 10 years are "represented in the same number in the past," Epps adds.

Although most organizations are relatively small, many have overlapping membership, where common views prevail. For example, members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) at Harvard boast a membership of 15 core members, but Damon A. Silvers '86, president of the organization, says that more than 15 students sympathetic to the organization's politics participate in meetings and demonstrations.

Organizations which focus mainly on electoral politics, such as the Republican and Democratic Clubs, attract the largest student memberships. GOP Club President Marie J. Lucca '85 says the about 125 students pay membership dues to the club, while the Democratic Club has more than 50.

ALTHOUGH MANY STUDENT GROUPS consider themselves substantially left of center, most have reluctantly supported Democratic nominee Walter F. Mondale.

But the communist Spartacus Youth League (SYL) stands out on the left, because it has adopted the slogan. "You can't beat Reagan with Democrats" and instead focuses on working class organizing. SYL seeks to form a workers party to raise class struggle to the heights of socialist revolution. Accordingly, their Harvard component, Friends of SYL, works to persuade students to become working-class partisans.

It's still early in the year, but groups have been actively organizing either for presidential candidates or for specific issues. The first week of school, a demonstration against South African apartheid drew a crowd of more than 50 students. The rally, initiated by SYL, was planned as a united front protest, under the slogans "Bury Apartheid" and "Free All Victims of Apartheid Oppression." However several groups invited to participate in the demonstration refused.

"We could not appear on a platform which did not specifically endorse divestiture," DSA's Silvers said. However, Silvers, on his own, spoke on the platform, encouraging other students to leave the rally.

"It was brought to my attention that SYL had pestered the campus well and were tabling continuously on campus," Silvers explained. "There was a serious danger that people not familiar with the political scene on campus would perceive the SYL as leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle," Silvers added.

The Black Students Association (BSA) was also asked to participate in the rally, but refused. "We thought that appearing on the same platform with the SYL would be contradicting too many of our beliefs and political views," said BSA president Timothy A. Wilkins '86. "It would not have made for a strong alliance."

"Members of these groups could see the contradictions to what their leaders were doing," said SYL member Andre Weltman '86. "That's why members of the organization came to the rally anyway. No one could have been opposed to the slogans we proposed for the united front demonstration. The leaders of these groups were more afraid of appearing on the same platform with communists."

THE DIVESTITURE RALLY INCIDENT demonstrates the fractious differences among various campus groups. Many organizations frequently work together on certain events, such as divestiture demonstrations or rallies against U.S. military intervention, only because the several groups share a core membership of activists.

Members of the DSA readily admit that they have members who are active in the Committee on Central America (COCA), the South African Solidarity Committee (SASC) or the Third World Student Association (TWSA). The result is a community of student groups who participate in electoral politics and protest on particular issues, often through legislative venues.

"Political activism is simply being done in a way for students to balance their concerns with their personal goals, looking towards their future," Epps says. "It doesn't mean that in that sense they are more conservative. Activism has simply changed in pattern from the ways that dominated the early '70s and late '60s.

COCA, with a transient, fluctuating membership, is typical of many groups on campus. Other groups such as the Peace Alliance, no longer exist, but this year, COCA's membership has grown.

"The group has a lot of new members, so the agenda for the year is open to formulation, "said Doug Brugge, a third-year biology graduate student and longtime organizer in the group. COCA has had a forum and film showing, and plans similar events during the year.

No agenda has been set for demonstrations and the group remains highly flexible, avoiding any monolithic political philosophy. Committees responsible for publishing leaflets and other literature, planning programs and arranging legislative lobbying action, make up the loosely structured group.

The TWSA is perhaps even more flexible. Formed in reaction to the Administration's refusal to list minority student groups Freshman Week events in the calendar, the group has no officers. It remains a coalition based organization made up of representatives from five Third World Groups.

"We focus on certain issues," said Anthony A. Ball '86, group spokesman. "Our main political concerns are giving Third World perspectives more political play in mainstream issues, and educating majority groups."

Like the DSA, COCA and the TWSA, many of the membership would call themselves Democrats and support Mondale. But few belong to the Democratic Club as well.

"We see ourselves as the left-wing caucus of the Democratic Party," explains Silvers. "We're simply interested in a more radical perspective than the Democratic Party," adds Kim Ladin '87 of DSA.

THE IDEA OF PROVIDING alternatives seems to be the general focus of many politically active groups, particularly the SYL. Rather than working in electoral politics, this fall SYL held a forum on the 1934 Minneapolis strike and showed the film "Labor's Turning Point." Gene Herson, a member of a maritime union in New York, presented a lecture on class struggle and labor action SYL's Marxist class series meets every other Wednesday this term.

"We feel that there is no fundamental difference between the candidates. Both represent certain class interests--those of the capitalist class," says SYL member Thomas Crean '86. "The alternative is to build a workers party, because a bipartisan anti-Soviet war drive can only be defeated through class struggle. We're for a workers' party to build a workers' government."

Michael T. Anderson '84, a SASC alumnus who founded the Endowment for Divestiture and now a member of the Law School Divestment Committee, says he believes that free speech, faculty tenure and divestment will prove to be the dominant issues of President Bok's term, which began in 1971. Anderson says that "the South Africa movement is the one thing [President] Bok can't coopt. Divestment, the Endowment for Divestiture and other efforts really force Bok to act."

The problem with organizing activities is that "we have to fight back and at least speak back, and we don't even have the resources," Anderson says. "We [SASC] are a core group of a half dozen with no money and little access to public space." Other groups say they also suffer from the same lack of resources, people and access.

The Student Freeze Voter movement, which last year held a forum on the nuclear freeze movement, has since been absorbed into Students Waging Peace, a peace group which also took the place of the Peace Alliance, to some extent. And other groups are constantly evolving from other student organizations.

Just this week, a new socialist discussion group was born when D. Joseph Menn '87 received approval for a Harvard-Radcliffe Socialist Forum Says Menn, "I think there is only one serious left voice on campus--the Spartacus Youth League. And so I wanted to bring more groups from the Left here, give people an opportunity to hear more views." Menn says he plans a first forum on "the Socialist Left and Democratic elections" for the weekend before the national election.

But Epps, who has watched student activism change substantially since he was carried out of University Hall in April 1969 by student demonstrators who occupied the building for a night, says he feels student activism--in whatever style--will always be alive at Harvard. "There are several different elements to student culture," Epps says." Right now, I'd say religion, electoral politics, athletics and academics occupy students minds most."

"Harvard has always had student activism, probably because there are so many differences of opinion." Epps continues. "I think here, more than at any other school, it's not who you are, it's what you think that's important."

Says Thomas N. Crean '86 of the Spartacus Youth League, a Marxist revolutionary group: "We feel that there is no fundamental difference between the candidates. Both represent certain class interests--those of the capitalist class. The alternative is to build a workers party, because a bipartisan class struggle can only be defeated through class struggle. We're for a workers' party to build a workers' government."

"We focus on certain issues. Our main political concerns are giving Third World perspectives more political play in mainstream issues, and educating majority groups," says Third World Student Alliance spokesman Anthony A. Ball '86.