Brown University Rejects Students' Suicide Pill Vote

By an almost two-to-one vote, Brown University undergraduates earlier this month approved a non-binding referendum asking the school's Health Services to "stockpile suicide pills for optional student use exclusively in the event of nuclear war."

The vote, which coincided with student government elections on October 10 and 11, attracted almost three times as many voters as last year's elections, said Matt P. Carroll, president of Brown's Undergraduate Council of Students.

But the Health Services has refused to stock the pills. "The mission of the university is to affirm and enhance life," said a university spokesman, Mark M. Nickel, "Suicide is not a solution to any problem."

Senior Jason Salzman, who led the campaign to put the issue on the ballot, said the effort was still successful. "It has aroused some very important political, philosophic, and moral debates about nuclear war," he said. "It was an excellent consciousness-raising technique."

Sophomore Christopher A. Ferguson, who worked with Salzman, said he feels most students voted for the proposal as a symbolic gesture against nuclear war, not because they supported the measure literally.

Nickel said that despite refusing to stockpile the pills, the university is taking the issues raised by the proposal very seriously. He said a number of university-sponsored forums about the issue of nuclear war have been scheduled.

"It raises some very important and very serious issues that are not being properly addressed," said Sumner H. Hoffman, director of Health Services. But he added that "my professional code of ethics and personal beliefs prevent me from helping in the taking of a life."

Media Attention

The proposal has attracted a great deal of news media attention. Salzman complained that reporters have focused almost exclusively on the suicide pills instead of on the larger question of nuclear war, which he called "too philosophical for the press to pick up."

Late last week Brown President Howard Swearer sent out a letter to parents stressing that the university will not stockpile the pills. According to Eric Broudy, director of the Brown News Bureau, Swearer was afraid the media's attention on suicide pills would worry parents.

Salzman attacked the letter as condescending to the students who worked on the referendum. "I think it shows that [Swearer] does not take students seriously," Salzman said, adding that Swearer did not send a similar letter explaining the university's position to students.

Ferguson said several students who worked on the referendum are organizing a Rally Against Nuclear Suicide which will take place at Brown and eight other college campuses, including Cornell, Columbia and Yale, on Friday, November 2. He said that there are no plans yet for a rally at Harvard.